Thread: What book are you reading right now?

About halfway through (3000 ipad pages)
The Forgotten Soldier.
by Guy Sajer



An odd book by an odd character.
It is allegedly the memoirs of a French teen 16+ years old with mixed french/german parentage who joined the German army in late 1942.
Initially assigned to a transport unit he later volunteers for service in the elite Gross Deutschland division just in time for the major Russian counter offensives.

He didn't keep a journal so he is writing from memory it seems and some dates and locations are in error. This along with other factors had caused the book to be called a fiction, but it now seems accepted as fact, or at least based on his own experience.
Some oddities for me are strange names for standard equipment, his repeated descriptions of serving as a loader for a MG42 but never referring to changing the barrel, and the sequencing of events making it seem a bit scripted, like a boys own adventure.
He is also quite an enthusiastic Nazi and Germanophile despite having a french father and being raised in france..

But a good read nontheless

One of my favorite books... not the best written, but as an insight into the human condition it is hard to beat, truly harrowing.

Great book. My copy is old and battered from re-reading over the years.

Originally Posted by Neo

One of my favorite books... not the best written, but as an insight into the human condition it is hard to beat, truly harrowing.

I think the writing probably suffers from translation to English?

Originally Posted by Necron99

But a good read nontheless

One of my all-time favourites as well. It's been a while. Also interesting because my heritage is German and French.

Originally Posted by Necron99

I think the writing probably suffers from translation to English?

Read it in German and English - the translation isn't bad at all

Reading Bill Clinton's autobiography. ... so so thus far

Pull yourself together Willy for fucks sake .....

Ship of Ghosts
James D. Hornfischer

A fairly epic account of the USS Houston which along with the cruiser HMAS Perth blundered into the middle of a Japanese fleet on a dark night in the Sundra straights.
Both ships were sunk after putting up a heroic last stand.

The book follows the Houston from birth to it's final battle and then the tribulations of the surviving crew in Changi and the railway death camps and then their final rescue from a camp in Phetchaburi.

Good read.

A side note, late last year divers found that an Indo salvage company has been systematically stripping the wreck of the HMAS Perth leaving nothing but a broken hull. For some reason the Aust government has kept this quiet...

cunts..

Originally Posted by Neo

That's great but how do you find books in google docs.? A basic google search? I'm thinking of getting a reader, especially if i can read pdf's and docs like this on them.

Just google the title + pdf. If the book is in googledocs you will get a link.

Yes the Kindle reads PDFs. That means I can do work on the beach instead of having to stay inside which is why it rocks!

Originally Posted by blue

Pull yourself together Willy for fucks sake .....

Cos there's not much else on my kindle to read at the moment...

Operation Mincemeat
Ben Macintyre

The first full accounting of the Man Who Never Was
The deception operation mounted by the Admiralty and MI5 to hide the invasion of Sicily from German planners. A corpse, some letters and a whole lot of maybes.

A bit wordy, but a thrilling read.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles

Crackling good yarn that snags you from the first page from back in the day when a chap jolly well knew how to write a book!



Morrissey - An Autobiography

Quite a good read. His style is a bit over-lyrical and oblique at times and it seems possibly a bit contrived that a fellow in his 50s could still harbour so much resentment at his school-teachers but he references interesting musical and poetical influences which makes you go and find out more about these interesting sources of the moz muse.

The Day We Lost The H-Bomb
Barbara Moran.

A history of sorts of SAC (Strategic Air Command) and the search for a lost H-Bomb.
In the 60's the US kept nuclear armed bombers on permanent patrol, always having enough in the air to launch a quick strike against the Soviets.

A B-52 on it's way home was refueling when an accident destroyed both it and the tanker plane along the Spanish coast. 3 bombs hit around a sleepy town causing contamination, the forth went into the ocean.

Not a bad accounting, well written.

I gave up on Bill Clinton's autobiography, I could stand the constant referral's to his parents as Mother and Daddy.

Started reading Sarum by Edward Rutherfood, much better. A slightly historical account of England set around the Salisbury Plains and Stonehenge.

With The Old Breed
E.B Sledge

Halfway through.
A Private in a 1st Marine Division mortar squad details his account of the amphibious invasion and taking of Peleliu and Okinawa.
Joining the Marines out of school in '42 he author is a typically devout American of his time, the writing is interspersed with lots of "He was the best officer I ever knew" and "He was the Marine we all tried to be" etc. But his descriptions of battlefield life and death are vivid and detailed. On a par if not better than Guy Sajers book.

^"Sledgehammer" - good book.

Originally Posted by kingwilly

I gave up on Bill Clinton's autobiography, I could stand the constant referral's to his parents as Mother and Daddy.

I guess you have to read it in context of his upbringing . . . plus he is a southern lad

I quite enjoyed it

Originally Posted by Necron99

With The Old Breed
E.B Sledge

Halfway through.
A Private in a 1st Marine Division mortar squad details his account of the amphibious invasion and taking of Peleliu and Okinawa.

I'll have to read that book. I went to Peleliu in 1988, as a side trip from the Philippines. The Americans finally drove the Japanese back into caves, but could not get them to surrender, so sealed them up with explosives. When the islanders returned after the war, they were horrified as the entire landscape had changed, and it was littered with body parts and unexploded ordnance. Even then, I saw an unexploded mortar shell leaning up against a tree near the beach.

Originally Posted by Latindancer

Originally Posted by Necron99

With The Old Breed
E.B Sledge

Halfway through.
A Private in a 1st Marine Division mortar squad details his account of the amphibious invasion and taking of Peleliu and Okinawa.

I'll have to read that book. I went to Peleliu in 1988, as a side trip from the Philippines. The Americans finally drove the Japanese back into caves, but could not get them to surrender, so sealed them up with explosives. When the islanders returned after the war, they were horrified as the entire landscape had changed, and it was littered with body parts and unexploded ordnance. Even then, I saw an unexploded mortar shell leaning up against a tree near the beach.

Can email it if you like.
After reading, Im surprised the natives went back at all.

Yes please, [email protected]

uh, and please to [email protected]

^ & ^^
Done. Enjoy.
I thought I'd take the liberty of signing you up for a bunch of gay midget porn sites, but they all said " Email already in use"

Cheers mate.











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