What Are You Reading Right Now?

[Jack Hays]

View attachment 67282389

Shocking as it is, this book--a crucial source of original research used for the bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners--gives evidence to suggest the opposite conclusion: that the sad-sack German draftees who perpetrated much of the Holocaust were not expressing some uniquely Germanic evil, but that they were average men comparable to the run of humanity, twisted by historical forces into inhuman shapes. Browning, a thorough historian who lets no one off the moral hook nor fails to weigh any contributing factor--cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force the others to bear more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty--interviewed hundreds of the killers, who simply could not explain how they had sunken into savagery under Hitler. A good book to read along with Ron Rosenbaum's comparably excellent study Explaining Hitler. --Tim Appelo

Yup. Follows in the path first explored by Hannah Arendt, The Banality of Evil.

 

[Risky Thicket]

During [1940], Britain snatched salvation from defeat on the beaches of Dunkirk and stood alone against Hitler as the conqueror of Europe unleashed a terrifying, monthslong aerial blitz against the island, killing or wounding nearly 100,000 Britons.

It was during this time that Churchill gave the stirring speeches for which he’ll always be remembered, inspiring his countrymen to fight on as they braced for an expected German invasion. Meanwhile, he was working feverishly behind the scenes to draw America into the war, knowing it was his nation’s only real hope for survival. - Star Tribune

 

[Jack Hays]

During [1940], Britain snatched salvation from defeat on the beaches of Dunkirk and stood alone against Hitler as the conqueror of Europe unleashed a terrifying, monthslong aerial blitz against the island, killing or wounding nearly 100,000 Britons.

It was during this time that Churchill gave the stirring speeches for which he’ll always be remembered, inspiring his countrymen to fight on as they braced for an expected German invasion. Meanwhile, he was working feverishly behind the scenes to draw America into the war, knowing it was his nation’s only real hope for survival. - Star Tribune

Excellent read.

 

[Marrybore]

This thread.

 

[Jack Hays]

Hell Hawks! The Untold Story of the American Fliers Who Savaged Hitler's Wehrmacht by Robert F. Dorr and Thomas D. Jones.

Author signed copy purchased in 2009. Getting around to reading it now.

 

[Fledermaus]

The Looming Tower is largely focused on the people who conspired to commit the September 11 attacks, their motives and personalities, and how they interacted. The book starts with Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian religious scholar who visited the United States in the late 1940s and returned to his home to become an anti-West Islamist and eventually a martyr for his beliefs. There is also a portrait of Ayman al-Zawahiri, from his childhood in Egypt to his participation in and later leadership of Egyptian Islamic Jihad to his merging of his organization with Al Qaeda.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy

by Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts - The New Press - 2018 - 464pp

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018. Named one of the “Best Civil War Books of 2018” by the Civil War Monitor.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference

By David Shimer - Knopf - 2020 - 384pp.

"[An] authoritative book... His section about the torturous deliberations within President Obama's administration about how to respond to Russia's active measures is comprehensive to the point of encyclopedic... fascinating reading."
—Philip Ewing, NPR

 

[jmotivator]

Helmet for My Pillow

By Robert Leckie

This is a first hand account of the hell that was the war in the Pacific. It's the book from which the miniseries "The Pacific" was partially based -- the other book being Old Breed by Eugene Sledge).

This book is a gift to posterity. Every war has a handful of eloquent writers to document what life was like, and few are as brutally honest Robert Leckie. From his description of the gnawing, constant war against an entrenched Japanese army, to the seemingly superior foe of unrelenting rain, and a "green hell" of the tropical forest that seems hell bent of undoing all but the simplest machines with pervasive, stinking decay, he paints a clear picture of life as a US Marine in the Pacific. While those who served on naval ships would describe the Pacific was as months of boredom interrupted by hours of terror, for the marine it was unending.

Robert Leckie is as hard on himself as he is on his fellow soldiers. Much like the book Band of Brothers, Leckie tells openly about the penchant in the Pacific for collectibles to augment the soldier's pay, from Japanese swords, to pistols, insignia, flags and gold teeth. Moreover, due to the pervasive failures of supply, soldiers and Marines would regularly steal from each other, and officers, under guise of the needs of the Corps, would steal from the enlisted.

After reading Band of Brothers, I concluded the the constant stealing back and forth in the Pacific was driven more by the sparsity. Every conquered German stronghold was a treasure trove of paraphernalia, while the Japanese, suffering even more catastrophic supply problems that the US marines, only left their weapons and dead bodies.

My only final comment is to disparage the HBO production of The Pacific. For the most part the series was true to the book, with only minor artsitic license. For instance, at one point in the book, Leckie is being sent to a hospital station on a nearby island, and a friend of his asked him to take a Japanese officer's pistol with him. His friend had pilfered it from te body of a Japanese officer a few days earlier, and his commanding officer had "commandeered" it. His friend had then stolen it back and needed Leckie to hide it until the officer gave up looking. Leckie then took it with him to the hospital where a doctor offered to buy it off him.

In the real story, as Leckie tells it in the book, he turned down the doctor's offer twice, and that was it. On hearing of the D-Day invasion he requested, and was granted, the pass back to his unit. The end.

In the HBO series they changed the story, making Leckie the owner of the pistol, and Leckie used the pistol to bribe his way back to his unit. It rolled two stories into one, since Leckie had actually pilfered a Japanese map box that he found was great for keeping his clothes dry, and his commanding officer had stolen it from him. All told, it didn't really change the character or the story in any significant way -- though personally I dont think the artsitic license was really necessary, as they could have told both stories in full with a 30 second scene of how he came by the pistol, and remove the 30 second scene where he bribed his way out of the hospital with it.

Anyway, no big deal. I can accept that. What I do object to, however, was the HBO series depiction of Robert Leckie's faith. In the book, Leckie comments regularly about his faith, the stresses, and how his beliefs were often challenged by the horror of war. But he was clear that he always found comfort in it, and his belief in the almighty was unshaken. At one point he spends time pondering the nature of life while looking at a pile of Japanese bodies, and his refusal to accept the atheist proposition that all these men, who each contemplated the mysteries of the universe, whose personage was greater than the spent husks they are now, could cease to be from an ounce of metal. Agree with him or not, it is his own thoughts on the subject.

He wents so far as to explain how he was inspired by those faithful around him, and ended the book with a prayer for the living and the dead, and an apology to God and Jesus for the hell mankind had wrought in the form of war, and the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima.

In the HBO series they insert a scene that isn't even in the book where they have Leckie lecture his new bunk mate on the futility of faith and religion. The writer of the screen play decided, through "artistic license" to make the persona of Robert Leckie the conduit of his own views on faith, and that is inexcusable to me.

Anyway, my problems with the HBO series is probably a topic for another thread, but it ate at me through my reading of Helmet for My Pillow as I waited for Leckie's abandonment of his faith that never actually came in the book.

 

[Jack Hays]

View attachment 67284915

Helmet for My Pillow

By Robert Leckie

This is a first hand account of the hell that was the war in the Pacific. It's the book from which the miniseries "The Pacific" was partially based -- the other book being Old Breed by Eugene Sledge).

This book is a gift to posterity. Every war has a handful of eloquent writers to document what life was like, and few are as brutally honest Robert Leckie. From his description of the gnawing, constant war against an entrenched Japanese army, to the seemingly superior foe of unrelenting rain, and a "green hell" of the tropical forest that seems hell bent of undoing all but the simplest machines with pervasive, stinking decay, he paints a clear picture of life as a US Marine in the Pacific. While those who served on naval ships would describe the Pacific was as months of boredom interrupted by hours of terror, for the marine it was unending.

Robert Leckie is as hard on himself as he is on his fellow soldiers. Much like the book Band of Brothers, Leckie tells openly about the penchant in the Pacific for collectibles to augment the soldier's pay, from Japanese swords, to pistols, insignia, flags and gold teeth. Moreover, due to the pervasive failures of supply, soldiers and Marines would regularly steal from each other, and officers, under guise of the needs of the Corps, would steal from the enlisted.

After reading Band of Brothers, I concluded the the constant stealing back and forth in the Pacific was driven more by the sparsity. Every conquered German stronghold was a treasure trove of paraphernalia, while the Japanese, suffering even more catastrophic supply problems that the US marines, only left their weapons and dead bodies.

My only final comment is to disparage the HBO production of The Pacific. For the most part the series was true to the book, with only minor artsitic license. For instance, at one point in the book, Leckie is being sent to a hospital station on a nearby island, and a friend of his asked him to take a Japanese officer's pistol with him. His friend had pilfered it from te body of a Japanese officer a few days earlier, and his commanding officer had "commandeered" it. His friend had then stolen it back and needed Leckie to hide it until the officer gave up looking. Leckie then took it with him to the hospital where a doctor offered to buy it off him.

In the real story, as Leckie tells it in the book, he turned down the doctor's offer twice, and that was it. On hearing of the D-Day invasion he requested, and was granted, the pass back to his unit. The end.

In the HBO series they changed the story, making Leckie the owner of the pistol, and Leckie used the pistol to bribe his way back to his unit. It rolled two stories into one, since Leckie had actually pilfered a Japanese map box that he found was great for keeping his clothes dry, and his commanding officer had stolen it from him. All told, it didn't really change the character or the story in any significant way -- though personally I dont think the artsitic license was really necessary, as they could have told both stories in full with a 30 second scene of how he came by the pistol, and remove the 30 second scene where he bribed his way out of the hospital with it.

Anyway, no big deal. I can accept that. What I do object to, however, was the HBO series depiction of Robert Leckie's faith. In the book, Leckie comments regularly about his faith, the stresses, and how his beliefs were often challenged by the horror of war. But he was clear that he always found comfort in it, and his belief in the almighty was unshaken. At one point he spends time pondering the nature of life while looking at a pile of Japanese bodies, and his refusal to accept the atheist proposition that all these men, who each contemplated the mysteries of the universe, whose personage was greater than the spent husks they are now, could cease to be from an ounce of metal. Agree with him or not, it is his own thoughts on the subject.

He wents so far as to explain how he was inspired by those faithful around him, and ended the book with a prayer for the living and the dead, and an apology to God and Jesus for the hell mankind had wrought in the form of war, and the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima.

In the HBO series they insert a scene that isn't even in the book where they have Leckie lecture his new bunk mate on the futility of faith and religion. The writer of the screen play decided, through "artistic license" to make the persona of Robert Leckie the conduit of his own views on faith, and that is inexcusable to me.

Anyway, my problems with the HBO series is probably a topic for another thread, but it ate at me through my reading of Helmet for My Pillow as I waited for Leckie's abandonment of his faith that never actually came in the book.

Religion is persona non grata at HBO.

 

[PoS]

The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency- Alexander McCall Smith: It's a short book, and its made out of vignettes rather than one story. It's about this woman in Botswana who decides to open her own private investigation firm. I would classify it as a cozy mystery, which means its very light on violence, gore or cynicism. It's not bad, but I feel its a little too lighthearted. 5/10

The Black Dahlia- James Ellroy: Im doing some research, and this is the opposite of the previous book I just read. It's clearly hard boiled and noirish with regards to genre. A fictional account of the real life Black Dahlia murders, its well written, lurid, and depressing, though I think its not as good as Elroy's other book LA Confidential. Nevertheless, it's still readable and highly recommended. 6.5/10

 

[ChezC3]

 

[Jack Hays]

The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency- Alexander McCall Smith: It's a short book, and its made out of vignettes rather than one story. It's about this woman in Botswana who decides to open her own private investigation firm. I would classify it as a cozy mystery, which means its very light on violence, gore or cynicism. It's not bad, but I feel its a little too lighthearted. 5/10

The Black Dahlia- James Ellroy: Im doing some research, and this is the opposite of the previous book I just read. It's clearly hard boiled and noirish with regards to genre. A fictional account of the real life Black Dahlia murders, its well written, lurid, and depressing, though I think its not as good as Elroy's other book LA Confidential. Nevertheless, it's still readable and highly recommended. 6.5/10

The No.1 Ladies' detective Agency was also made into a fine TV miniseries.

 

[Jack Hays]

View attachment 67285410

Read those as a boy. Inherited the set from my parents. Still on my bookshelf.

 

[ChezC3]

Read those as a boy. Inherited the set from my parents. Still on my bookshelf.

Picked up these along with his multi-volume sets on WW1 and WW2 as a reaction to the dumb asses toppling his statues.

Spite has always been a powerful motivator for me and has served me well over the years.

 

[Risky Thicket]

Finishing The Splendid and the Vile - Erik Larson. Churchill, the citizens of England and the Blitz. Not a dull page in the book.

I'm half way through First to Jump - Jerome Preisler. This is a fascinating and detailed read about the establishment of the Pathfinders and their amazing contributions and sacrifices in Normandy and later Market Garden.


I am in awe of these men. They faced incredible odds again and again. The country, the world, needed them and they stepped up.

The book should be required reading for every 18 to 25 year old who can't stay home and/or wear a face mask in public because "it's too hard".

 

[Rexedgar]

1776 - David McCullough

 

[Jack Hays]

1776 - David McCullough

Not bad. Not great, IMHO.

 

[swing_voter]

This book won the Pulitzer Prize, and made the NY Times best seller list.

It's written by one of America's greatest authors who's won all kinds of high class awards.

Also, if you're too lazy to read, there's a TV mini-series that does the book some justice. I'm sure it's on Netflix.

 

[Jack Hays]

This book won the Pulitzer Prize, and made the NY Times best seller list.

It's written by one of America's greatest authors who's won all kinds of high class awards.

Also, if you're too lazy to read, there's a TV mini-series that does the book some justice. I'm sure it's on Netflix.

If the Old West is your thing, I think you'll enjoy this.

 

[Rexedgar]

Not bad. Not great, IMHO.

I’ll be sure to get your recommendation before I begin another book.........:mrgreen:

 

[ChezC3]

Not bad. Not great, IMHO.

Didn’t feel it lived up to the hype. Always found Joseph Ellis’ work to be more to my liking. Too bad he lost his mind there for a sec.

 

[PoS]

The No.1 Ladies' detective Agency was also made into a fine TV miniseries.

Woohoo! Thanks for the heads up, Jack- I need to go watch it now.

 

[Rogue Valley]

On Treason: A Citizen's Guide to the Law

by Carlton F. W. Larson - Ecco - 2020 - 304pp

The only crime defined in the United States Constitution, treason is routinely described by judges as more heinous than murder. Today the term is regularly thrown around by lawmakers and pundits on both sides of the aisle. But as these heated accusations flood the news cycle, it’s not always clear what the crime of treason truly is, or when it should be prosecuted.

 

[Rexedgar]

So many books, so little time...........