What Book Are You Reading?

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13 years

Posts: 520

Bhagavad Gita. A hindu scripture.

I've been in a few Hindu Temples and taken part in the worship ceremonies so I thought I'd try to understand a little more about what's behind it all.

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Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
Bunsen Honeydew - Good on you matey never hurts to understand other faiths more deeply I dare say that many different faiths could learn from each other rather than promoting and insisting they're version is the one true faith even then within they're own faith they are usually split into subdivisions
thinking the exact same thing maybe the world would be a better place if everyone did this ?.....:eagerness:

One chapter into:- It's Been Emotional British actor and professional footballer, Vinnie Jones is the original bad boy made good and will tell the full extraordinary rags to riches story for the first time - the brilliance on the pitch, the brawls and drinking off the pitch, the arrests, the affairs, his wife's dramatic health scare and his latest headline scandal with a Russian prostitute. Bold and frank, this is Vinnie laid bare.

Born and bred in Watford, Jones represented and captained the Welsh national football team after qualifying through a Welsh grandparent. He won the
1988 FA Cup final against Liverpool before moving to Wimbledon and then Leeds United. He has also played for Chelsea. His celebrity status has grown
over the years after appearing in the 2010 series of Big Brother and coming third, as well as the hugely successful British Heart Foundation CPR campaign.

Vinnie's bad boy tag has followed him into the world of film where he has used his hard man status to secure roles in hugely successful Brit Flicks, such as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

https://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781471127595/its-been-emotional-9781471127595_lg.jpg

Geoff.

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Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
Star Wars A New Hope/Empire Strikes Back/Return Of The Jedi Went to see A New Hope at the Theatre One in Coventry when it first came out. I
have to admit that A New Hope and Force Awakens are the only two I have watched at the cinema, however I have watched all others via VHS and Sky Cinema.

None the less still like them however The Last Jedi and Solo I am not really enthusiastic about with all the controversy surrounding them, still I am
prepared to give them a watch and put all that rubbish to one side and judge them for what they may be.

As for the book what I have read is a little different from the film (i.e. Darth Vader picks some hapless sole up by the neck then just drops him to the floor
in the film - In the book he flings him across the isle like a rag doll when he snapped his neck) Now I would have liked to have had that scene in the film
but as the films are family orientated when made that obviously would have been a bit over the top.

https://starwarsblog.starwars.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2018/01/star-wars-trilogy-delrey-1992-1-1.jpg

Geoff.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

"Unbroken". Laura Hillenbrand, Fourth Estate, ISBN 978-0-00758057-6. £8.99

This personal account is one of the most riveting and at the same time disturbing stories that I've ever read. The author accelerates the narrative and grips the readers interest from start to finish.

It is the story of an American athlete named Louis Zamperini who featured in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, joined the US Airforce, served in B24s in the Pacific was captured by the Japs and survived by the skin of his teeth to tell his tale. What happened to him and his comrades at the hands of the Japs received a full measure of revenge at the dropping of the two nuclear weapons.

A truly inspirational account.

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Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
Longitude by Dava Sobel.

The tenth anniversary edition of the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. With a new Foreword by the celebrated astronaut Neil Armstrong.
"Sobel has done the impossible and made horology sexy - no mean feat"

New Scientist Anyone alive in the 18th century would have known that 'the longitude problem' was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day - and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution.

The quest for a solution had occupied scientists and their patrons for the better part of two centuries when, in 1714, Parliament upped the ante by offering
a king's ransom(£20,000) to anyone whose method or device proved successful. Countless quacks weighed in with preposterous suggestions. The scientific establishment throughout Europe - from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton - had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a
celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution. Full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd, LONGITUDE is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation and clockmaking.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51TMQDVSVRL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Geoff.

Member for

5 years 8 months

Posts: 5

I read books like animal, creative activity, health fitness type, healthy food, Adventure stories.

Profile picture for user 1batfastard

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Post by 1batfastard on Aug 31, 2018 at 7:19pm
Hi All,
While the forum was being facelfited :D I read The Shackleton Boat Journey by F.A.Worsley. This is an account of the Shackleton boat journey. The journey began in August 1914 in London and the next the world knew of Shackleton was in May 1916, when three ragged men staggered into the whaling station at Grytviken on South Georgia. On August 1, 1914, on the eve of World War I, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his hand-picked crew embarked in HMS "Endurance" from London's West India Dock, for an expedition to the Antarctic.

It was to turn into one of the most breathtaking survival stories of all time. Even as they coasted down the channel, Shackleton wired back to London to offer his ship to the war effort. The reply came from the First Lord of the Admiralty, one Winston Churchill: "Proceed." And proceed they did. When the "Endurance" was trapped and finally crushed to splinters by pack ice in late 1915, they drifted on an ice floe for five months, before getting to open sea and launching three tiny boats as far as the inhospitable, storm-lashed Elephant Island. They drank seal oil and ate baby albatross (delicious, apparently).

From there Shackelton himself and seven others the author among them went on, in a 22-foot open boat, for an unbelievable 800 miles, through the Antarctic seas in winter, to South Georgia and rescue. It is an extraordinary story of courage and even good-humor among men who must have felt certain, secretly, that they were going to die. Worsley's account, first published in 1940, captures that bulldog spirit exactly: uncomplaining, tough, competent, modest and deeply loyal. It's gripping, and strangely moving."

I have just started reading The History OF Scotland by George Buchananwhich he wrote in the last two years of his life.( I assume as there is no volume number it is Vol.1. so just another nineteen to buy then :D ) but the picture above is exactly what I have in my edition of 1831, I picked it up at a car boot for 50p about 20years ago and has just sat waiting to be read, hard to think the book is 187 years old.:eek:

Below courtesy of :-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Buchanan#Works .

The second of his larger works is the History of Scotland, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, completed shortly before his death, and published in 1582. It is remarkable for the power and richness of its style, and of great value for the period personally known to the author, which occupies the greater portion of the book. The earlier part is based, to a considerable extent, on the legendary history of Boece. Buchanan's purpose was to "purge" the national history "of sum Inglis lyis and Scottis vanite" (Letter to Randolph). He said that it would "content few and displease many"; in fact, its matter gave so much offence that a proclamation was issued calling in all copies of it, as well as of the De Jure Regni, that they might be purged of the "offensive and extraordinary matters" which they contained.

Geoff.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

"Air Battle For Dunkirk". Norman Franks, Grub St. £10.00

This book by Norman Franks is an account of the aerial battles over Dunkirk by the RAF during the evacuation of the BEF taking place from the 26th May to the 3rd June, 1940.

It is a thorough and valuable work of reference.. I was surprised by the mention of the very often successful part played by Anson's, Hudson's and the contentious Boulton Paul Defiant during the air fighting over the Dunkirk beachhead..

Member for

5 years 5 months

Posts: 126

Reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes which is a scholarly work that is also a pleasure to read. I will then re-read Shockwave sub-titled the countdown to Hiroshima. I strongly recommend both books. The lesson to be drawn is that it was Hitler's actions that enabled the concentration of physicists assembled at Los Alamos to create the Atomic bomb.

Member for

19 years 1 month

Posts: 6,043

I have done a fair bit of reading over the Chrimble Holidays.
I really enjoyed Bruce Dickinson - What does this Button do
A thoroughly enjoyable book and written in an easy going and amusing way - I certainly chuckled quite a lot whilst reading it.
I was never a Maiden fan but always interested in music of many types,he does not go too deeply into the flying side of his life but certainly enough to make it more interesting for an aviation person.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

If you like messing about in sailboats then, after reading this you might not be so enthusiastic !

This book is an on-the-edge-of-your-seat account of a Force 12 - on the Beaufort scale - storm attempting to wreck most, if not all, of the 300 odd boats that took part in the 1979 Fastnet yacht race.

I remember this event. It started from Cowes I. of W. swept on down South West to Lands End then West to the Fastnet lighthouse on the south East corner of the Irish Republic; a distance of some 600 miles across some of the most turbulent waters to be found anywhere.

The storm developed into a titan that hardly permitted survival. Five yachts were sunk, fifteen abandoned and later recovered. Fifteen crew lost their lives. This book is the story of one survivor.

"Left for Dead", Nick Ward & Sinead O'Brien. A & C Black publishers Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7136-8281-6

Member for

8 years 1 month

Posts: 9

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51edAOwbeHL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Recently finished "Piece of cake" and immediately moved on to this, description as follows.....

A Good Clean Fight is a 1993 novel by Derek Robinson, and a sequel to Piece of Cake, his famous and controversial novel of the Battle of Britain. It continues the story of RAF Hornet Squadron, now posted to North Africa in 1942, during a lull in the fighting.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

"Dead Wake". Erik Larson, Transworld publishers, £9.99.

This book is a fast moving account of the sinking of the Cunard transatlantic liner, the Lusitania, by a German U-boat during WW1. Amid suggestions of skulduggery by the British Govt. in the guise of Winston Churchill, the loss of life was equivalent to the Titanic. This account gives the reader an excellent sense of life aboard prior to and after the single torpedo hit the ship just off the Head of Kinsale, S.W. Ireland.

Terrifying !

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

"Swatchways and Little Ships". Maurice Griffiths, Conway Maritime Press Ltd. £6. 95.

I know there are on the forum a few with an interest in the sea and small boats. Even if your interest is limited you will find this book to be a good yarn and technically engaging. It is written by one of our foremost yacht designers; Maurice Griffiths whose boat designs dating back some 80 years are still to-day in use around the world.

One particular Griffiths design the Eventide, a 24ft monohull has sailed the oceans of the world having been built by individual owners in most countries with a small boat sailing tradition. The title of the book 'swatchways' refers to the name given to the many tidal gullies formed between the sand and mud banks of the Essax (sic) and Suffolk shore of the Thames Estuary and the detailed local knowledge required to successfully navigate them.

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Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
Just wondering if anybody else ever gets stuck reading a educational book ? I seem to have gotten a third of the way through The History Scotland and just cannot for the life of me get back into it (Nearly 6 months :o)

I love reading but this one has just made me hit the brakes for some reason and every time I try just a few pages more then it's put down again.

Geoff.

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

Most of my computer books have yet to be finished. If I have a problem, the net can usually solve it, so the books remain a back stop!

Profile picture for user 1batfastard

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
Newforest - I sometimes wonder whether it's just a loss of interest in the subject matter ? I just wonder if starting a new book would be the kick up the backside I need or indeed if I am alone in this I mean 6 months is a long time for a mental block.

Geoff.

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

Several non-aviation books have recently captured by attention...

​​​​​​Grant by Ron Chernow takes a well received look at the American Civil War general and put the old stories about his alleged heavy during to bed.

And just to be fair (not it it seems to bother most news organizations today :))...

Rebel Yell, the Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne. Like the Grant book, this was a well received best seller. It explores a man with a lot of contrdictions...an extremely pious physics professor becomes a vicious fighter.

Reading them both you can see why the 1861-65 war captured so many imaginations of historians, enthusiasts and nerds around the world. (I understand there are even detractors in the UK).

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 1,940

"Enemy Coast Ahead" by Guy Gibson.