What Book Are You Reading?

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 963

"Engineers of Victory", Paul Kennedy, Penguin, ISBN 978-0-141-03609-0 £9.99.

This is a magnificent book about WW2 and the people who produced solutions to special, seemingly insoluble problems. It pays special attention to the development of the B29 and the Anglo American P51 Mustang. Mr. Kennedy writes about the role of the American Construction Battalions known eventually as the SeeBees. Without them, the war in the Pacific might have been very different.

A very good book John, agreed. I've been fortunate to visit and stay at Port Heuneme, Ventura county in California and home to the SeeBees with a great museum too. As you say a significant impact in the Pacific war and often forgotten.

Member for

18 years 7 months

Posts: 1,376

Well, that will keep us going to the end of the year! I am sure we could add a few of our own recommendations. Just ordered 'Sidewall' from the Big River, so have that to look forward to!!

Just ordered "Down to a sunless sea" Looking forward to it.

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 18,353

Felix The Railway Cat

The life and times (so far!) of internet cat Felix the Huddersfield Station Cat

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

"The Road past Mandalay". John Masters, Orion books. ISBN 978-0-3043-6157-1. £8.99

For any such as myself, who didn't know much about the 14th Army and the Burma/Malaya campaign against the Japanese in WW2, this book is a revelation and not for the squeamish.

The author writes explicitly and with intimate detail about his life as a Brigade Commander fighting in face to face contact with an implacable enemy, over what eventually became, an 800 mile front, from Kohima in the North to Rangoon in the South.

This book bares all. The terrain, the climate, the monsoon, the mud and slaughter are all exposed with an uncomfortable clarity. A superb account of the unendurable that was endured.

Member for

18 years 8 months

Posts: 1,706

Met said cat last week as i was working in the station,she has her own Hi viz but is now on a diet as shes putting a bit of weight on due to being spoiled by the commuters.

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 18,353

I follow her on Facebook.

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

Churchill, A Life by Martin Gilbert. An updated one volume book by the man who wrote the definitive six-volume work on the man.

Whether you like him or not, (and I've noted here that some have few good words to say about him...and Margaret Thatcher...thanks to parental and school indoctrination rather than independent thought), that anyone claiming an interest in 20th Century Britain probably needs to know Churchill and not just the caricatures of him.

A great deal of aviation content dealing with his flying lessons before and after WWI, and his work trying to get the UK to rearm in the 30s after it became clear to him that Germany was re-arming.
Clement Atlee comes across like a German apologist/stooge saying in 1934 that Hitler's power was waning and calling Churchill's warnings "bellicose"after Germany broke the Versailles treaty he re-militarized the Rhineland.

Member for

7 years 5 months

Posts: 4

About a quarter way through Mein Kampf, a very interesting read, sometimes hard to put down, was reading it till 4.00am last night.

Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 585

JB….I find your comments regarding Churchill and Thatcher insulting in the extreme. There are millions, yes millions of people who detest Thatcher as a direct result of her political actions. To suggest this is simply “indoctrination” is fanciful.
I do have friends who support the beatified ones premiership. Even they acknowledge that she can be construed as an individual whose opinions were divisive.

As for WSC, first of all thank goodness he along with Attlee stopped the Tory Lord Halifax gaining control and settling peace terms with Nazi Germany. Had that happened then the Third Reich would doubtless still exist.
However, I for one will never forgive him for the way he prosecuted the Bomber war then as the war came towards an end, washed his hands of it and deserted Bomber Command, Harris and all those brave, brave men.

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 18,353

Warburton's War - Tony Spooner

Maverick reconnaissance pilot Adrian Warburton's life and career detailed in full.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

I just have to mention the following. I picked it up from a charity shop during one of the infrequent pauses allowed to me when Mrs. G is ferociously retailing.

Apart from the theme - about small boats, a life long interest of mine, the narrative took the reader on a quite amazing solo voyage of some two to three thousand miles along the canals and rivers of Europe starting in the North West of England and finishing in the Black Sea.

All the more startling when you learn that the author is proposing to make this odyssey in a ten foot long by four feet wide, ply wood, Mirror class dinghy. This is, or was, a very popular class of racing sailing dinghy designed to introduce small children into the ways of the sea generally and racing particularly.

This venture spectacularly defies belief. The young man, a teacher, stretches credulity beyond the point of ready acceptance. He triumphs over commercial locks, French peniches, the weather, near starvation, the raging Rhine. He crosses the busiest waterway in the world; the English Channel in a TEN feet dinghy. I felt vulnerable in a 30 footer !

The name of the book is "The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow" by A.J. Mackinnon. Seafarer Books. ISBN 0-95381-805-5 £12.95.

This is a wonderful, wonderful read. Enthralling !

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 18,353

Spitfire Pilot by David Crook.

Crook's diaries about life on a Spitfire squadron during the Battle of Britain. Only just started it last night.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Few Survived", Edwyn Gray, published by Leo Cooper, ISBN 0-85052-499-7 £14.95.

This is a book about cold courage and technical development related to submarine manufacture, their service use and the loss of life associated with that. Among other matters, you're left wondering how and why men placed themselves in such jeopardy.

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

Just finished 'Wings on my sleeve' by Eric 'Winkle' Brown obviously long overdue as it was so enjoyable and probably reviewed here many times.

He flew 487 different types of aircraft, a world record surely never to be broken!

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 18,353

The Big Show

Haven't read this classic in years. Mine is the full-length version, too.

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

Just finished, for the umpteenth time, 'Corporal Jacques of the Foreign Legion' by Henry de Vere Stacpoole, an author more well known for the 'Blue Lagoon'. A sentimental book for me as probably the second book I ever bought over fifty years ago. It was tatty then and has not improved in my world travels. Only learnt today that the author died and is buried in the Isle of Wight.

Member for

12 years 8 months

Posts: 851

I have just started reading the fourth of Jonathan Sumption's Hundred Years War series, Cursed Kings

I can thoroughly recommend all four, provided you have plenty of time, as whilst they are eminently readable, they are doorstops.

Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 1,813

Route 63 - Around England on a Free Bus Pass David Hadfield

Member for

6 years 10 months

Posts: 11

I am reading this book about Steve Jobs and really enjoying it. I Like biography books, but unfortunately read mostly for work these days.

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

'TOSH' by Tosh Lavery! Who would call their son with this name? Anyway the book is autobiographical and the story of the deaths, dangers and drama of the Garda sub aqua unit which was formed in 1974, very interesting if a bit sad and gory.