What are you reading right now?

[Sailor Steve]

I have the luxury of being able to cross-reference with Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships series. Easier to follow but less specific informaton. I also have the advantage that I've been compiling this same information for my unfinished naval game for the last two decades, so while any particular book can give me information I need and I learn a lot from each one, I already have the ships organized by date in my own information collection, so logical flow isn't as important to me as it once was.

If I dismissed the first Destroyers book a little casually, I should restate that it is very well worth the money. I learned a lot of things that don't go into my game. In that book Friedman talks about Jackie Fisher's input when he was commander of the Mediterranean destroyer group, and while I've always read that the 'River' class were welcomed as being far superior than the preceeding 'TBD' classes, no one ever said why. Friedman gives examples, including captains' reports on why everyone wanted to command a 'River'.

Overall I found the Cruiser book to be just as informative, but I mostly only use them as a reference, so I haven't read it straight through, even though I've had it for months.