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What are you reading - Part II


jrlx

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Northampton - 5,000 Years of History.

Unfortunately the author, Mike Ingram, passed away just before Christmas. He was a highly respected local historian.

I'm on Chapter 13 - The Lollards.

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9 minutes ago, Whofan said:

 

Vince,

 

I've also got Johnny Rogan's bio of Ray Davies in the to read pile, that's 780 pages long !  Of course, that covers his career and life up to about 2015.

 

If Mark Lewisohn does complete volume 2,  I think it would go from Jan 1963 to say Jan 1969, followed by volume 3 which would take the story to the formal legal break up of the Beatles in 1974.

 

 

 

 

So two years or a bit less is 840 pages,62-69 must be about 3,000 pages and luckily the final one would be just one year,best of luck mate....

Edited by Vince1159
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6 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

So two years or a bit less is 840 pages,62-69 must be about 3,000 pages and luckily the final one would be just one year,best of luck mate....

:rofl2:

 

 

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18 hours ago, Whofan said:

If Mark Lewisohn does complete volume 2,  I think it would go from Jan 1963 to say Jan 1969, followed by volume 3 which would take the story to the formal legal break up of the Beatles in 1974.

 

 

Do you think he'll live long enough to write it?

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On 29/12/2021 at 21:43, FalkeEins said:

 

..looks like a fantastic read - although the book is very pricey. 

Well, being a school Librarian has it's privelidges. Our section on Spaceflight was looking a bit sparse.

Also slipped in Bold they rise: the Space Shuttle Early Years. by David Hitt on the last book order.

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1 hour ago, Whofan said:

The question is will I live long enough to read them?

War and Peace springs to mind,at almost 1,300 thousand pages i tried but gave up after a lot of patience and reading (a bit like Shakespear) and the films weren't that much livlier....

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56 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

War and Peace springs to mind,at almost 1,300 thousand pages i tried but gave up after a lot of patience and reading (a bit like Shakespear) and the films weren't that much livlier....

 

I agree with you.

 

I've never read any of the "classics" - War and Peace to Brontes to Dickens to Hardy etc., and I recall being bored to tears by Shakespear at school.

 

 

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On 1/2/2022 at 9:51 PM, keefr22 said:

Bomber Boys by Kevin Wilson.

 

Even if you know something of Bomber Command's offensive against Germany it still makes quite sobering reading.

 

Keith

 

I read that one some years ago, and yeah, I remember it being tough to read in places. Not because it isn't well written, but as you say, it's quite a sobering read. I was prepared for that, because some years before that I'd read an account from an infantryman who was, as a POW, present in Dresden during the infamous bombing operation that destroyed much of the city. His point of view was the first I had read which questioned (in this case directly attacked) the ethics of area bombing cities.

 

Looking back through my reading history, I'd assume the book I'm thinking of is Rifleman, by Victor Gregg. I don't remember anything else about the book other than his first hand description of the Dresden bombing which has stuck with me ever since.

 

I remember, when I read Bomber Boys, thinking it was a well balanced representation of both sides of the moral vs military value argument.

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On 1/4/2022 at 7:57 PM, Whofan said:

 

I agree with you.

 

I've never read any of the "classics" - War and Peace to Brontes to Dickens to Hardy etc., and I recall being bored to tears by Shakespear at school.

 

 

 

I'm with both of you there! I tried Wuthering Heights - because I really liked the song! Kate Bush's hit gave me an interest in the characters at the heart of the book so I thought I'd give it a try. I made it through maybe three chapters before giving up.

 

And then I fell into the same trap again. After watching, and really enjoying, the spectacular movie flop that was John Carter, and then learning that, because it had been such a flop, the sequels are never likely to show up. So if I wanted to know what happened I'd have to read the books. There are 11 of them. I got a bit further this time, I was halfway through book 3 before I abandoned it. That was many years ago so there'd be no point picking up where I left off now, I won't remember any of it.

 

I actually did quite enjoy the first book (A Princess of Mars) and made it through the second, but by the time I got to the third, the style of writing and the constant battles against never ending adversaries had worn me down and I left John Carter to his fate.

 

No other classic book has fared better than those ones in my reading history, and Shakespeare was the worst of them all. Way too much like hard work.

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On 1/3/2022 at 10:51 AM, keefr22 said:

Bomber Boys by Kevin Wilson.

 

Even if you know something of Bomber Command's offensive against Germany it still makes quite sobering reading.

 

Keith

I read his Men of Air some years ago, sobering doesn't come close, there were tears at time. :(

Starting in on Leslie Baveystock's, "Wavetops at my Wing Tips" easy enough read so far.

Steve.

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  • 2 weeks later...

“Who Cares Who Wins” by Jimmy Quentin Hughes. 

 

Quentin (as we knew him) was the lecturer in Architectural History at Liverpool School of Art, a slightly stiff, dapper figure, well dressed in tweeds and always wearing gloves and sunglasses.  An unusual look amongst academics in the early 80s.  Each year a small group of students studied “History of Military Architecture” – the last lecture commenced with him saying “you probably always wonder about my gloves and sunglasses” and proceeded to tell us the story of his SAS service and the ill-fated “Operation Pomegranate”.  He also related how whilst in hospital German officers conspired against the Gestapo to get him considered a POW – he subsequently escaped and his debrief was one of the first official descriptions of the “Kommandobefehl”, though apparently it was not believed at the time!

 

This book is the full story of his time in WW2, a main portion of which is the story of the raid and its aftermath.  I believe Quentin’s story also figures in Damien Lewis’s latest SAS book.

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Wavetops at My Wingtips has been parked for a bit, when, after tripping over a mention of it on the Ships Nostalgia Forum, I went looking for info on the MV Derbyshire sinking. I dimly remember this from the day September 1980 though as I was on a skiing holiday with my girlfriend, I probably had other things on my mind. ;) :D The fact that nothing was heard or known for years afterwards meant it didn't feature large in local media either. I interloaned a copy of "A Ship Too Far, the Mystery of the Derbyshire" most of the way through this already & although published before the Derbyshire wreck was discovered has some fascinating background on shipping & ship building in the UK & perhaps has helped to understand why the 60-75% of British reg ships calling into our local port when I was a young fella petered out to almost none over the decades. I also got a copy of David Mearns "The Shipwreck Hunter" from our local library, the chapter on the Derbyshire brought the story right up to date & along with the informative & interesting 55 page thread on Ship Nostalgia, has been a interesting, chilling & thought provoking journey for a shipping enthusiast from a young age.

Steve.

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@stevehnz I was in HMS Antrim at the time of the sinking of MV Derbyshire and we were in Japanese waters. We had to sail into the typhoon to try and find her or any survivors. The upper deck was out of bounds, the superstructure took a right battering and everybody apart from duty personnel were told to turn it to prevent injury. After searching for days nothing was found. Years later the reason for her sinking would be found.

 

BTW, I have just started reading a Christmas present - "Diddly Squat - A Year on the Farm" by Jeremy Clarkson.

 

Dave

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1 hour ago, davecov said:

@stevehnz I was in HMS Antrim at the time of the sinking of MV Derbyshire and we were in Japanese waters. We had to sail into the typhoon to try and find her or any survivors. The upper deck was out of bounds, the superstructure took a right battering and everybody apart from duty personnel were told to turn it to prevent injury. After searching for days nothing was found. Years later the reason for her sinking would be found.

Dave

Thanks for that insight Dave. I've found it a moving & interesting story from a position of complete disinterest, from your much closer involvement it must have resonated with you through the years I'd imagine.

Steve.

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Even now it resonates with me and I can still recall the search and the pounding that our ship received. There was a lot of coverage for years as families sought the truth of her sinking. At first it was thought that her hull snapped at frame 65 like others of her class but eventually that was disproved once the wreck had been found. The forward hatches had failed and allowed water to enter the hold.

 

Dave

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10 hours ago, stevehnz said:

MV Derbyshire sinking. I dimly remember this from the day September 1980

 

I remember it too, although I was 4 years out of Uni my Materials Engineering thesis had been on material and possible stress failures in bulk oil and ore carriers, so the tragedy struck a chord with me - at the time it appeared to echo strongly with the loss of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (another bulk iron ore carrier) which I'd studied, although the exact cause of the latter still hasn't been found.

 

Keith

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Just finished James Holland "Brothers In Arms" which chronicles the stories and tragedies of the Sherwood Rangers from D-Day to VE Day. Very readable and a fantastic insight into what it was like to fight in a tank in WW2. The only question I would have about the book would be the wisdom of using the same title as that other book (about the 101st Airborne for anyone unaware of it!), seemed an odd thing to do. 

 

Anyway a great book and I will be investigating the authors other work and I believe he has a podcast? 

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1 hour ago, Rumblestripe said:

Just finished James Holland "Brothers In Arms" which chronicles the stories and tragedies of the Sherwood Rangers from D-Day to VE Day. Very readable and a fantastic insight into what it was like to fight in a tank in WW2. The only question I would have about the book would be the wisdom of using the same title as that other book (about the 101st Airborne for anyone unaware of it!), seemed an odd thing to do. 

 

Anyway a great book and I will be investigating the authors other work and I believe he has a podcast? 

 

Isn't the book about the 101st Airborne called 'Band Of Brothers'?

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On 1/23/2022 at 3:59 PM, 593jones said:

 

Isn't the book about the 101st Airborne called 'Band Of Brothers'?

Yes, that was my point. A rather well known book and TV series at that! It seems odd to choose the same name for a book on matters military. There is a thematic commonality with that book in that it documents the experiences of a single unit from D-Day to VE Day. I confess that the attrition of tank crews is not something I was really aware of. From memory the Sherwood Rangers suffered something like 150% casualties among tank crews between those dates. Of course that is a statistical oddity because some crews did make it all the way and some were "merely" wounded. A sobering read for armour enthusiasts and one I heartily recommend.

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20 minutes ago, Rumblestripe said:

Yes, that was my point. A rather well known book and TV series at that! It seems odd to choose the same name for a book on matters military. There is a thematic commonality with that book in that it documents the experiences of a single unit from D-Day to VE Day. I confess that the attrition of tank crews is not something I was really aware of. From memory the Sherwood Rangers suffered something like 150% casualties among tank crews between those dates. Of course that is a statistical oddity because some crews did make it all the way and some were "merely" wounded. A sobering read for armour enthusiasts and one I heartily recommend.

 

Sorry to bang on about this, but the titles are not the same, similarly themed, agreed, but 'Band Of Brothers' is not the same as 'Brothers In Arms'.  I doubt there would be any confusion between the two.

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9 minutes ago, 593jones said:

 

Sorry to bang on about this, but the titles are not the same, similarly themed, agreed, but 'Band Of Brothers' is not the same as 'Brothers In Arms'.  I doubt there would be any confusion between the two.

Well it confused me! :shrug:

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After my Jan 18 post, I got to & read the whole of "The Shipwreck Hunter" by David Mearns. I'd borrowed it for the Derbyshire chapter, but the rest of it was a great read, Mearns finding HMS Hood & HMAS Sydney among others. I found both of those chapters very moving, as was the one on the AHS Centaur, torpedoed off Brisbane by a Japanese sub in 1943. An easy book to read & recommend .

Steve.

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On 26/01/2022 at 12:44, Beermonster1958 said:

M R James -  Complete Ghost Stories and,  H P Lovecraft -  The Complete Collection.

Two masters of the genre.

 

John

Love MR James.

 

There was a brilliant version of "Whistle and I'll come to you" on BBC Iplayer over Christmas starring the brilliant Robert Horden. 

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