What are you reading - Part II

[Stephen]

Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club by Tom Cleaver 

[Pete in Lincs]

Having recently read Victor Boys, Vulcan Boys and Scram! (RN Wessex in the Falklands) I started 'Vulcan 607' last night.

I've read it before, some years ago, but the other books have lodged more background info in my brain.

[zebra]

On 10/23/2021 at 5:23 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

Having recently read Victor Boys, Vulcan Boys and Scram! (RN Wessex in the Falklands) I started 'Vulcan 607' last night.

I've read it before, some years ago, but the other books have lodged more background info in my brain.

I re-read Vulcan 607 recently, it’s a superb book. Really well written and portrays the enormous challenges behind the operation brilliantly.

 

I’m currently reading Project COLDFEET by William Leary and Leonard LeShack, about an expedition in the early 60s to investigate an abandoned Soviet drifting ice station in the Arctic. Two men (one of them was LeShack) parachuted onto the ice and we’re later picked up by a B-17 using the Fulton recovery system (the same one that was used at the end of Thunderball). It’s a fascinating read, goes into the history of the ice stations and the people involved as well as the operation itself, and very well written. And it includes a few photos I haven’t seen before that will be useful when I eventually get round to the B-17 conversion.

[Skodadriver]

I'm currently reading "As the Women Lay Dreaming" by Donald S Murray. The central event, although it doesn't happen until late in the book, is the sinking of HM Yacht Iolaire just outside Stornoway on 1 January 1919 which led to the loss of over 200 lives and is still Britain's worst peacetime maritime disaster apart from the Titanic. 

 

Goodreads.com describes it as "a beautiful, powerful and poignant novel". I definitely agree with that description and apart from being a superb piece of writing the book uses fiction to bring factual history to life quite brilliantly. It's hard to believe it was Donald Murray's debut novel.

 

 

 

 

 

[Procopius]

Just finished this fascinating article about the US Navy's secret internal list of their best officers, written in early 1942, which included quite a few names now ignominious and omitted both Nimitz and Spruance. The five officers who received the most votes to be on the list are almost completely unknown today. I like to think I know a little about naval history, and I'd never heard of any of them.:

 

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2011/may/picking-winners

 

 

[Billy54]

Just finished "The Man Who Died Twice" by Richard Osman, his second book in his Thursday Murder Club series. If you like light fiction mixed with mystery and humor then you will enjoy this book. I found it to be a pleasurable read and a page turner.

 

The Thursday Mystery Club consists of four retired folks living in a large retirement community in a place called "Coopers Chase". Two women and two men who manage to get themselves immersed in all sorts of trouble and manage to solve the "who dun it". All four are wonderful and likable  characters and each has their own personality and background.

 

This plot includes former a former spouse, MI5, missing diamonds and of course a murder or two. The villains include an international money launderer, a New Jersey Mafia member, a local drug dealer and an unsavory young man who likes to ride his bike while assaulting and stealing. Needless to say the Thursday Murder Club members are instrumental in ensuring justice is served and solving the mystery and murders.

[593jones]

Just finished 'Righteous Kill' by Ted Lapkin, a very enjoyable time-travel thriller.  Set, initially, in the present it concerns a German scientist who has discovered the secret of time travel.  He approaches the Israelis with the proposition of using it to send Israeli special forces back in time to assassinate Hitler and the other senior Nazis, and thereby avoid the Holocaust.  The actual raid is very well described, as is the aftermath, with the German army crushing the SS and SA.  Somewhat disappointingly, the author doesn't go into how this would affect the war, with a military government in Germany.  Where it does drag, for me at any rate, is the authors loving descriptions of the weaponry and tech used by the Israelis, I don't think that much information does much for the pace of the book, but as I say, that's just me.  What did surprise me was the author's contention that changing history to that extent would not cause too much change in the present, I would have thought the ramifications would be enormous.  Still, it's a good read, and I did enjoy it.

 

 

[Bill Davis]

Outlander, Diana Gabaldon

[Teuchter]

All that’s dead, Stuart MacBride, a Logan Macrae series humorous police thriller set in Aberdeen

[JohnT]

Just finished "The End - Germany 1944-45" by Ian Kershaw.   A very readable study on why, when it blindingly obvious to all who cared - dared? - to look the war was lost to Germany.  Yet the struggle went on.  The conclusions he reaches are that those in power had too much invested to agree an end and that there was simply no alternative option that would work with the Allies or internal ability to oust Hitler.  

 

There is a lot more to it than that and the 400 pages are well set out and worth a read IMHO.  Its a well written explanation of a perfect storm of circumstance that lead Germany being one of the very few examples of a State at war seeing oblivion looming yet not suing for peace on terms and choosing obliteration instead.  

 

Well worth a purchase.

[Ray S]

Having just finished Isaac Asimov and his 'Early Asimov Vol 1', I needed something a little different, so a quick visit to our library and I have now got through the first 110 pages of 'The Quantum Story - A history in 40 Moments' by Jim Baggott.

 

A rather interesting read on how quantum theory came about and the hitches on the way. Not that I understand much...

 

Ray

[stevehnz]

Have now completed "Spartan, Seven letters That Spanned the Globe" the Spartan Air Services story, by Norman Avery. A really interesting read & one that makes me hope even more for some decals for a Spartan Mosquito to go with the new Airfix kit. Now well into "Heaven High Ocean Deep" by Tim Hillier-Graves, the story of the 5th Naval fighter wing on HMS Indomitable in the last couple of years of WW2. Looking at a story I am familiar with through John Winton's "The Forgotten Fleet" & David Hobb's "British Pacific Fleet" it is a refreshing & enlightened change to read it from the perspective of those at the sharp end. I'm nearly up to the Palembang Raids.

Steve.

[psdavidson]

Having finally completed The Count of Monte Cristo which I started on 8th august, I'm now listening to Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, audiobook narrated by Bill Highy

 

/p

 

[Quiet Mike]

How has this life long aviation history nerd got to 48 years old without having read this solid gold gem of a narrative? I could not put this one down.

I'm aware of Paul Richey of course, and he pops up in lots of other accounts. I really need a 1/48 fabric wing Hurricane now ...

 

Currently reading by Mike, on Flickr

[Bullbasket]

The Little Village School by Gervase Phinn. Very James Herriot, but from an educational, as opposed to a veterinary view point.

 

John.

[Skodadriver]

My current read is "The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed" by Wendy Lower.

 

A fascinating, horrifying and unusual take on Nazi genocide which reminds the reader that the Holocaust wasn't just about Auschwitz, Belsen and Sobibor. Not an easy book by any means (although it is disturbingly readable) but one which should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in 20th century history.

[Whofan]

Currently on the go are Rise and Kll First by Ronen Bergman, the history of Israel's targeted killing programme which moved up a gear after the Munich Olympics. Difficult reading, to be honest, but the author presents the facts in a readable manner and while you share the unease that some figures in Israeli politics felt about the programme, you can also see why its proponents  were - and I assume still are.

 

Also reading Rogue, by James Swallow, a further installment in the Marc Danes sort of spy genre books, readable but not too strenous.

 

And of course SAMI and MA which I picked up on Monday.

[stevehnz]

After Heaven High, Ocean Deep which I found quite moving in its closing sections, I'm reading Sunshine, Sugi & Salt by Terry Smith, a young guy goes to sea with a British cargo line in the early sixties. Very much a look at an era & opportunities that are no longer possible in today's shipping industry.

Steve 

[Billy54]

I am reading/browsing my old issues of SAM mainly to reread Mike McEvoy's Tailpiece columns. I have my SAM copies in plastic magazine boxes and first box I got to ended with the August 1987 issue and goes back to the March 1980 issue. Some of the issues are missing from that box. The man was certainly industrious, writing a column each month and building two or models for the review section. Not only do I enjoy Mr McEvoy's writing but just revisiting that time 35 years ago brings back pleasant memories.  

Edited December 11, 2021 by Billy54
spelling

[Vince1159]

I dug out some of my old Street Machine and Custom Car mags from the 80's a few days ago and had a read,completely different world and a bygone age (long live the 70's and 80's)....

[Whofan]

Now moved on to All these years - Tune In by Mark Lewisohn.

 

This is vol. 1. In a trilogy of books by Mark Lewisohn on the Beatles, covering the period between birth of each Beatles' grandparents and 31st December 1962.

 

And it is detailed. Very, very detailed.

[Macsporran]

Bernie Gunther novels by Philip Kerr

 

Intelligent fiction, superbly researched and grippingly told stories of anti-hero Gunther - a policeman in 1930s Weimar Berlin, through the rise of the Nazis, his absorption into the Wehrmacht, then the SS, through the War then as a private investigator in the Russian and Allied occupation and post-war in Peron's Argentina and Battista's Cuba.

 

Currently on number 8 in the series - Prague Fatale - where Gunther is forced by SS General Reinhard Heydrich to accompany him to Czechoslovakia to investigate attempts on his life. Kerr drops shocking facts into his stories which you find difficult to believe but then when you check, you find they are absolutely based on documented truth.

Marvellous!

Edited December 13, 2021 by Macsporran
typo

[Whofan]

36 minutes ago, Macsporran said:

Bernie Gunther novels by Philip Kerr

 

Intelligent fiction, superbly researched and grippingly told stories of anti-hero Gunther - a policeman in 1930s Weimar Berlin, through the rise of the Nazis, his absorption into the Wehrmacht, then the SS, through the War then as a private investigator in the Russian and Allied occupation and post-war in Peron's Argentina and Battista's Cuba.

 

 

As you say, absolutely briliant books. I beieve I've read most if not all of them over the years,never a dull moment in any of them.

 

Sadly, Philip Kerr died in 2018, leaving a Bernie book to be published posthumously, called Metropolis. I know I haven't read that one, so I'll be looking for it over the next few weeks.

 

 

[psdavidson]

On the Kindle: Real tigers by Mick Herron

On audiobook: Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection by Arthur Conan Doyle narrated by Stephen Fry

[speedy]

I’m on Chastise by Max Hastings. Came recommended and so far 60 pages in, it’s good.