Right now I'm reading

The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Here it is in pdf

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottab...sBoard.doc.pdf

Markus

I've been re-reading the first edition of Norman Friedman's US Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History this last week. Even though it's his first full-length book, it holds up remarkably well, even if the pre-Fletcher era is kind of rushed.



On a related note, I've been purchasing a lot more of my books off-Amazon because they don't seem to have much respect for their long-time customers any more. I was a Top 5000 reviewer there for a long time, but every time I write a new review for them, it gets buried at the bottom. Between that and having nine of my reviews unceremoniously deleted back in December, I feel like I'm just writing reviews for them out of tradition more than anything else. :down:

just finishing rereading Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag. It gets better every time i read it.

started on Humane by Samuel Moyn but it is not very enjoyable. i do not recommend it. :nope:if you want more detail send me a PM.

as i put down Humane i will be starting The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock. i hope it is better than the previous book. :03:

I'm currently reading The Devil's Device by Edwyn Gray, about Robert Whitehead and the early history of the torpedo. Tried reading it about a decade ago, but I'm enjoying it a lot more this time. Very interesting blend of historical, technical, and biographical details. I've also been reading Torpedo: The Complete History of the World's Most Revolutionary Naval Weapon. Has its moments, but more of a coffee table book and nowhere near as focused.



Actually, I'm ALWAYS reading about three or four books at a time, I just keep forgetting this thread exists! :haha:

These look interesting to me

https://archive.org/services/img/onw.../0/default.jpg

https://covers.zlibcdn2.com/covers29...bbfcf99424.jpg

Adding to my reading list


https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....1WZqq5VQyL.jpg
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Can-Hold-.../dp/0399178643

Ian Fleming. Novel #4 of his first six: From Russia With Love.

Fleming had grown tired of his former-SAS assassin and with this novel he intended to end the short series of short stories ala Arthur Conan Doyle and The Final Problem. However, his fans reacted the same as Doyle's short story fans did and he was forced to bring back his popular hero for several more short stories.
:Kaleun_Salute:

^ ah interesting


I have several books about Ian Fleming, fascinating man

Here's my review of the new "Anatomy of the Ship" book on the aircraft carrier Hiryū:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r...SIN=1472840267



I've had quite a few misgivings with the direction the series has taken over the last few years, but I'm pretty happy with how this one came out, and I've never seen an IJN warship depicted at such a high level of detail before.

Submarine Warfare in World War I, by Charles River Editors.
In audiobook form.

Palace Guard by Mike Wallace
 

i was looking over my library for something that i had not read in a while and came upon Palace Guard by Mike Wallace. it is about the Nixon White House and all of the characters that infested the place from 1969 until 1974.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOwmTmoB7QQ

I'm going to order this book. I'm a bit of a B-29 junkie. Those folks were just starting to figure out that there was a "jet stream" over the Pacific. Navigation was mostly limited to star shots and many of the B-29's were, simply, lost somewhere over the ocean.

As a follow-up on a rainy day, I'm not sure if I'll order this book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cYCb32SUTs

It is part of a series and this book is massive. Which is great if you enjoy being flooded with information and you have strong wrists. :doh:

One thing both authors seem to miss, Charles Lindberg had volunteered to teach fighter pilots how to conserve fuel and cruise their aircraft when they weren't dog fighting. Lindberg was a civilian and a celebrity (and its also notable that he wasn't sent to the ETO :O: ) but desperate times call for desperate measures and Lindberg was "embedded" with a P-38 squadron (and possibly an F-4U squadron) in the Pacific. It has been documented (but not proven) that Lindberg shot down one, and possibly two Japanese fighters, while he was training these squadrons.*

The higher-ups in these squadrons went ape when the reports of Lindy shooting down Zeros got to them. Lindberg was very much a civilian with no chance of getting commissioned into military service due to his cozy relationship with the German government prior to the war.

Still, Lindberg's contribution to the war was massive and mostly undocumented. It was a case of the wrong guy being the right guy at the right time. Without his help, it would have been almost impossible to have P-38s and ,later, P-51s escort the bombers over Japan.


*- The book is titled Pacific Sweep by William N. Hess and tends to read like a hot mess. Hess does a very short intro in each chapter and then basically cuts and pastes after action reports (verbatim) by fighter pilots into the bulk of each chapter. This book is tough to find and was mostly sold as a cheap "throw away" paperback during the 1970's. While the background story is great, the delivery is very ham-handed. :06:

reading a book about Lyndon Johnson's responsibility in Jack Kennedy's assassination. it is early on and the topic du jour is LBJ's childhood.

I'm going to tell you about a huge book I got from my Uncle after he died.

Author Yann Arthus-Bertrand
Title Earth from above.

Format of the book
High=370 mm
Width=295 mm
Thickness=45 mm
Pages 454.
It is a wonderful book with lots of photos of our beautiful earth.

Markus