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Posted
19 hours ago, Billy54 said:

 

If pulp is something you are interested in and Dashiell Hammett in particular you may be interested in "The Big Book of the Continental Op". It contains all of Hammett's Continental Op stories as they appeared in Black Mask. The book contains 730 pages.

 

 

 

Thanks. I will certainly check that out!

  • Like 1
Posted

 

Just finished 'War and Coffee' by Joshua Havill. It's a personal memoir of his time in Afghanistan as a UH-60 Blackhawk pilot. Not much for the adrenalin junkies in the book but a fascinating (to me) account of the day to day activities of an aviation company in a war zone and the various personalities within.

 

It's given me a yen to re-read Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, a Huey pilot in Vietnam. The book charts his year 'in-country' and is packed with random technical detail about flying Hueys.

  • Like 2
Posted

The Kamikaze Hunters by Will Iredale, another look at the British Pacific Fleet, it appears to give a refreshingly different perspective & is an easy read even though I've read a fair bit about this time.

Steve.

  • Like 2
Posted

Another Will Iredale book. The Path Finders. Don Bennett, Bomber Harris and 8 group. A very informative and interesting read. 

Setting them up was far from plain sailing. A very steep learning curve followed and so did horrendous loss's. 

I have trouble putting this one down. Highly recommended.

  • Like 6
Posted
2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Another Will Iredale book. The Path Finders. Don Bennett, Bomber Harris and 8 group. A very informative and interesting read. 

Setting them up was far from plain sailing. A very steep learning curve followed and so did horrendous loss's. 

I have trouble putting this one down. Highly recommended.

 

Hi Pete,

 

in one of those odd coincidences, The pathfinders is the book I have put on the bedside cabinet to read after I finish Merlin, by Graham Hoyland, which I've just started!

  • Like 2
Posted

If you're one of those interested about questions of the 'why' and 'how' behind

aviation and naval subjects at particular points in history,  a couple of tomes have recently been rewarding to alternate between.

 

Part of that larger story about the uses of operational research in the last century, this one obviously focuses on how it was taken up as a way of identifying and thinking through problems in an aerial context:

53521293087_e2d9d95c47_h.jpg

You can access a copy here free of charge.

 

This one:

81RRPWNWc2L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.

 - looks at those factors largely absent from standard military histories: the nature and attitudes of the society producing such craft, in terms of how both have evolved co-independently over time.

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Posted

In one of those " oh yes" moments, I spied a book in Waterstones in Worcester  yesterday which fell into my hands with ease.

 

And into my bag as soon as I paid for it.

 

I began reading it while waiting for the train back home, and continued to read it on the train.

 

I forced myself to put it on the bedside cabinet because I have two books on the go at the moment.

 

Oh, you wanted to know what the book I bought yesterday was?

 

Eric "Winkle" Brown's Biography.

 

I got as far as his service on HMS Audacity, when it was torpedoed. I may interrupt my reading of the Pathfinders to finish it.

  • Like 6
Posted

Reading the following for research for future builds:

  1. The Irish Air Corps - An illustrated Guide - Joe Maxwell & Patrick J. Cummins - ISBN 978-0-9562624-0-0
  2. Wings over Ireland - The Story of the Irish Air Corps - Donal MacCarron - ISBN 1-85780-057-5 

Full of information and pictures.

 

Now if only I could find the elusive IAC (Irish Air Corps) Decals in 1:72 scale!

 

Colin

  • Like 1
Posted
3 hours ago, Philly1860 said:

Reading the following for research for future builds:

  1. The Irish Air Corps - An illustrated Guide - Joe Maxwell & Patrick J. Cummins - ISBN 978-0-9562624-0-0
  2. Wings over Ireland - The Story of the Irish Air Corps - Donal MacCarron - ISBN 1-85780-057-5 

Full of information and pictures.

I saw these in a 19 kg book bundle on ebay, but only did some more research after or I'd have put in a higher bid! 

 

3 hours ago, Philly1860 said:

 

Now if only I could find the elusive IAC (Irish Air Corps) Decals in 1:72 scale!

Get 100 posts and you can ask here,  bound to turn up in time.  Or look for partial sheets

Max Decals has a FAcebook page,  https://www.facebook.com/MaxDecalsPublications and got lots of interest when mentioned a possible 1/32 Hurricane sheet...

as well as request for a reprint of older ones...

 

Posted

Thanks Tony,

 

I've managed to get some partial sheets and some kits with the decals included.  For the older model aircraft, the ones without roundels just strips I be able to just paint them on.   I managed to get a couple of sheets from Joe Maxwell (Mas Decals) and  I'm on the MaxDecals Facebook page too.   I had loads of questions on glues, about weekend kits, airbrushing etc. and posting these would have got me nearer to the 100 posts but I did the right thing and searched the forum and found all the answers to my questions.  Going to have to dig a bit deeper and come up with some other questions that haven't already been asked and answered, I've got a few in mind.

 

Do you have a link to that eBay offer or is it past?

Anyway this topic is helping me get there.

 

Colin

Posted
On 11/02/2024 at 12:27, TheBaron said:

If you're one of those interested about questions of the 'why' and 'how' behind

aviation and naval subjects at particular points in history,  a couple of tomes have recently been rewarding to alternate between.

 

Part of that larger story about the uses of operational research in the last century, this one obviously focuses on how it was taken up as a way of identifying and thinking through problems in an aerial context:

53521293087_e2d9d95c47_h.jpg

You can access a copy here free of charge.

 

This one:

81RRPWNWc2L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.

 - looks at those factors largely absent from standard military histories: the nature and attitudes of the society producing such craft, in terms of how both have evolved co-independently over time.

 

 

 

Re "early" submarine warfare, I just read "Dardanelles Patrol"  by P. Shankland and A. Hunter, a very well written account of a British submarine in WW1 that penetrated Turkish defences and entered the sea of marmara, the idea being to disrupt enemy supplies to forces opposing the Gallipoli landings. Several other attempts had been made with disaterous results. 

As the book dates from the early 60s the authors were able to speak directly to a number of the men who were actually serving on the operation. Well worth a read if you're interested in the history of submarine warfare, and an excellent sea story too. 

  • Like 2
Posted

Currently reading 'Sky Fighters of France' by Lt Henri Farré. I'm a keen student of WW1 aviation accounts, and this popped up on my radar a couple of weeks ago. Farré was an artist well into his 40's at the start of the war, but was keen to join up and do his bit. He was assigned the role war artist with a brief to record the life of the rapidly blossoming air service. I had seen his paintings and sketches before but never knew the artist or the story behind them.

 

As for the book, it's published in 1919 and is typically jingoisitic of the period, but still interesting. A few paintings are reproduced in the book, but in my 2014 copy they are very poor quality. I'm doing more research online.

 

https://hyperallergic.com/466822/the-artist-who-witnessed-the-beauty-and-horror-of-wwi-aerial-combat/

 

 

  • Like 1
Posted

Just started Send a Gunboat. Douglas Reeman. First read decades ago. I've always enjoyed his books. Tales of derring do at sea. So why did I join the RAF? 😉

  • Like 3
Posted

Not arrived yet but await the delivery of my next read, having seen a few excerpts before I'm keen to read it properly ...

Anna Egorova, Over Fields Of Fire: Flying the Sturmovik in Action on the Eastern Front 1942-45

 

The account of a female Sturmovik pilot who survived many combat missions and being shot down, captured and, badly wounded, thrown in a concentration camp, only to be accused of collaboration by her own side on liberation. 

Luckily and rather amazingly she ended up living to a good old age, into her 90s! 

  • Like 3
Posted

Just finished "Cahokia Jazz" by Francis Spufford and I was disappointed with it. The book concerns the authors alternate (revised?) history of middle America during the 1920's. It has the main character pursuing tangents to the story line while spending (wasting?) words, sentences, paragraphs and pages describing his exploits. The plot reminds me of someone trying to ride a bicycle down a flight of stairs. I was attracted to the book by the word "Jazz" in the title and had visions of hopped up jazz musicians and sultry torchlight singers performing in smoke filled clubs and speakeasys to a audience of flappers, playboys, drug dealers, pimps and other undesirables but I was disappointed because none of that happened.  

  • Like 1
Posted

Continuing with my Robert Harris season; finished Pompeii, now moving on to The Fear Index

and on audiobook

Winnie the Pooh narrated by Alan Bennett

  • Thanks 1
Posted

Just started Dave Grohl's book I got from my local charity shop (3 books for £1!).

 

Very promising so far.

 

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  • Like 2
Posted
On 14/02/2024 at 18:06, Billy54 said:

I was attracted to the book by the word "Jazz" in the title and had visions of hopped up jazz musicians and sultry torchlight singers performing in smoke filled clubs and speakeasys to a audience of flappers, playboys, drug dealers, pimps and other undesirables but I was disappointed because none of that happened.  

😂

As his agent might say: 'Mr. Spufford is not known for that type of writing...'

  • Haha 1
Posted

I'm reading "Bloody Sixteen" by Peter Fey which is the story of USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 during the Vietnam War.

  • Like 1
Posted

Last night read through most of Jason Moore's    "Il 2 Shturmovik, Red Avenger"   an in depth treatise on the aircraft, which also puts it in historical context, with a concise overview of the war on the Eastern Front and how the aircraft from unfortunate beginnings became a crucial war winning weapon. 

I'd say it's a "must have" if you're modelling any of the Sturmovik variants. 

As it happens, a very appropriate read as yesterday was Red Army Day

 

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Posted

I'm reading the Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh and really enjoying it, it's a superb piece of work.  I'd never read anything by Waugh before as I wasn't sure I would enjoy it, but how wrong can you be?  It's a very funny book (or books, to be pedantic!), particularly the story of Apthorpe's thunderbox and Brigadier Ritc;hie-Hook's involvement.  I do have a vague memory of the BBC adaptation from 1967, with Edward Woodward as Guy Crouchback, but it is very vague.

 

Also interesting is the introduction, by Angus Calder, with details of Waugh's military service, which was not altogether distinguished.  At one point, Calder writes, Waugh's commanding officer had to post a guard on Waugh's quarters to protect him from his own men!

  • Like 1
Posted

To Sir with Love, by E R Braithwaite, the book the movie was based on & one I've been meaning to read ever since I discovered some years ago the  movie was based on a a true story. I was in my early teens when I saw the movie, soon after its release, & thought it was a great story, the book is a good read, a thought provoking snap shot of a bygone era, I like such books. We often get Lulu's song on the 60s,70s & 80s radio station which seems to be on all the time in our place & which nudged me into getting a copy through the library.

Steve.

  • Like 1
Posted
On 24/02/2024 at 20:08, 593jones said:

I'm reading the Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh and really enjoying it, it's a superb piece of work.  I'd never read anything by Waugh before as I wasn't sure I would enjoy it, but how wrong can you be?  It's a very funny book (or books, to be pedantic!), particularly the story of Apthorpe's thunderbox and Brigadier Ritc;hie-Hook's involvement.  I do have a vague memory of the BBC adaptation from 1967, with Edward Woodward as Guy Crouchback, but it is very vague.

 

Also interesting is the introduction, by Angus Calder, with details of Waugh's military service, which was not altogether distinguished.  At one point, Calder writes, Waugh's commanding officer had to post a guard on Waugh's quarters to protect him from his own men!

 

Just a wonderful series of books. I am a big fan of Waugh.

 

I don't know if you have read it but his first Decline and Fall is absolutely brilliant and was made into a superb series starring Jack Whitehall and others in the recent past. -  Hilarious. 

Posted

Currently about halfway through Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Tiger.

 

When I was much younger I really enjoyed the Boys Own stuff of the TV series, but didn't see them all. So several years ago I got them on DVD and worked my way through. 

 

A year or so ago I picked up Sharpe's Eagle somewhere I don't recall. Taking the notion recently to pick it up, I thought I better start at the beginning, and after a visit to eBay here I am.

 

Really enjoying it!

Posted

About two thirds of the way through Notes from a small Island. Bill Bryson.

A tour of the UK. First published 1993. He visits places from his past and travels around, as best he can, by public transport or on foot.

It's not that long ago, Yet he describes very well how things were beginning to degenerate, empty shops, factories etc, back then. 

Yet there are places you would want to go to for the views, or the experience of the sheer history. A great insight into the 'British experience'.

I do like his books, I still have a couple of others to reread. 

 

On Friday, from a charity shop, I got a copy of Henning Mankells' Wallendar book, The troubled man. Just 50p.

 This, oddly, is an American edition. Originally priced at $18. How it got into a remote Gainsborough shop I'd love to know.

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