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Thread: Books We Read/Listen To

  1. #151
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    Add Faulkner to that and you have my three.
    Mine: Dickens, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky (the latter a recent addition).

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  2. #152
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Mine: Dickens, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky (the latter a recent addition).

    Shakespeare and Dostoevsky don't count; they are too canonical. That's like counting the Bible. (I did my senior essay on Dostoyevsky, and would have to count both him and WS too if they fit within the guidelines. Also Vince Gilligan).
    Last edited by concerned; 04-25-2014 at 02:11 PM.

  3. #153
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    Shakespeare and Dostoevsky don't count; they are too canonical. That's like counting the Bible. (I did my senior essay on Dostoyevsky, and would have to count both him and WS too if they fit within the guidelines. Also Vince Gilligan).
    Rats. OK, Dickens, Tom Clancy and Tom Wolfe. (Kidding about Clancy. Don't really have a third.)

    (Isn't Dickens pretty canonical?)

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  4. #154
    Well yeah, there's that.

  5. #155
    I seem to be the outlier here. While I am starting to incorporate classic literature into my reading, I am still mostly reading non-ficiton, mostly military history.

    Recent books I didn't post about here included:

    The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, From George W. Bush to Barack Obama by Michael R. Gordon & General Bernard E, Trainor.

    This excellent book may stand for decades as the definitive accoun of the Iraq War -- post invasion phase (the authors wrote a previous book about that titled Cobra II). It is ambitious, well researched, and a highly critical at U.S. policy in Iraq.

    The American Civil War: A Military History by John Keegan (Listened to, rather than read)

    The book appealed to me because Keegan is one of the foremost military historians of our day, and he is neither a northerner nor a southerner, but a Brit. The book is fantastic, as in the narrator -- another Brit.

    The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance by Thomas B. Buell.

    Fantastic biography of the commander of Task Force 16 at Midway and the Fifth Fleet during the Central Pacific campaign.

    History of United State Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. VII: Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942-April 1944 by Samuel Eliot Morison.

    An excellent book about operations in the Aleutian, Gilbert and Marshall Islands.


    Unlike L.A., I actually would put Clancy in my top three, along with E. L. Beach. Too many to pick from after that.
    Last edited by USS Utah; 04-28-2014 at 11:30 AM.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  6. #156
    Thach Weave: The Life of Jimmie Thach by Steve Ewing

    Concerned about the disparity in performance between the Grumman Wildcat and the Japanese Zero -- based on prewar intelligence -- Thach developed his beam defense tactic, to which is friend Jimmy Flatley later gave the name the Tach Weave. Thach would use the weave just once in comabat, at Midway. Following that battle he served in the training command as gunnery officer, but ended up working with Disney and Warner Bros. on training films. After that he was sent back to the Pacific as Task Force 38's operations officer when the carrier force was commanded by Slew McCain. Thach's career would continue after the war, with an escort carrier command during the Korean War, command of the carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt, and finally assignment as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air).

    This this the third book in a trilogy authored or co-authored by Ewing about World War II fighter pilots, the first two being Fateful Rendezvous on Buth O'Hare and Reaper Leader on Flatley. And I seem to be reading them in reverse order.

    Excellent.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  7. #157
    The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 by Cornelius Ryan

    The classic history of the invasion of Normandy. Fantastic.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  8. #158
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by USS Utah View Post
    The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 by Cornelius Ryan

    The classic history of the invasion of Normandy. Fantastic.
    I agree. I read this a few weeks ago while on my way to the Normandy memorials in France. It was great, and added greatly to the experience of seeing those places.

    I'm now reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." It is both fascinating and depressing. I'm in the section describing Hitler's beginnings as a leader after WWI. What fascinates me is the question of how a nation like Germany, which gave the world Luther, Kant, Goethe, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, fell under the spell of such a crazy, brutish man and perpetrated such a catastrophic war on the entire world.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  9. #159
    Wow, did someone besides me read a book?

    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  10. #160
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by USS Utah View Post
    Wow, did someone besides me read a book?

    I also read "A Tale of Two Cities" since the last time I posted here. I really enjoyed it (not having really read it back in high school. I read Cliff's Notes instead.)

    I'll try to keep this up. Our board needs a shot or two in the arm.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  11. #161
    I should finish Volume VIII of Samuel Eliot Morison's History of United States Naval Operations in World War II -- New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944-August 1944 -- today. Excellent, as most volumes of this series are.

    Before that I read July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin.

    In the summer of 1914, Europe was a powder keg set off by the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, that is the conventional wisdom about the outbreak of the First World War. But is it an accurate assessment of what happened that fateful summer? Could a global, or even a Europe-wide war have been avoided? McMeekin presents a gripping narrative that suggests World War I might have been avoided entirely if not for the actions of a few statesmen in the month after the assassination. Fantastic.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  12. #162
    Iceberg by Clive Cussler

    Cussler's second published novel finds Dirk Pitt investigating a ship found inside an Iceberg, which leads to a large conspiracy. Excellent.

    Now reading
    The Age of Airpower by Martin Van Creveld.

    A look at airpower -- its development and history -- which the author argues has been on the decline since the end of World War II. Excellent.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  13. #163
    I just finished "Boys in the Boat" - the story of the 9-man crew that won the gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It's a must-read. The author profiles all of the rowers but focuses on Joe Rantz and, of course, the stories leading up to the gold medal race. This one's a major motion picture waiting to happen. It has a Seabiscuit and Unbroken feel to it but a different author - Daniel James Brown. This one stays on the shelf and gets passed on to my sons.
    Last edited by Utebiquitous; 08-21-2014 at 12:06 AM. Reason: spelling

  14. #164
    Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq by John C. McManus

    Even as technology has advanced and changed warfare over the last 70 years, it is still the infantry, the "grunts", that do most of the fighting and dying. The common foot soldier is still needed for victory to be achieved, even on the Desert Storm-like techno-battlefield. As one World War II soldier put it: "There is no worse place than where the Infantry is . . . or what it has to do. A war is not over until the Infantry is done with it . . . finished moving on foot more than the other, finished killing more than the other. And when it is all done, and the Infantryman is taken home again, some of him will remain in that place . . . forever." In an end note, McManus paraphrases a point made by Lt. Col. David Grossman, US Army (ret.) in his book On Killing, that in today's society we seem to know much about the phenomenon of warfare but very little about actual killing in combat, which is like knowing a lot about relationships but nothing of sex.

    In this book, McManus writes about ten different battles or situations from the last 70s years, starting with a jungle battlefield on Guam against a self-destructive enemy, then in the rocky crags of Peleliu against a defensive-minded enemy; he then moves to the European theater and the unrestrained urban battlefield of Aachen and the defensive struggle on the northern shoulder of the Bulge. Moving to the Vietnam War, the author writes about Westmorland's big-unit war, the Marines combined action platoons, and the battle of Dak To in 1967. In a more modern setting, we read about infantry moments during Operation Desert Storm, restrained urban combat in Fallujah, and then counterinsurgency combat as part of the so-called surge in Iraq. The author takes the reader onto the battlefield and hides nothing from his view, and thus he sees that the World War II soldier quoted above was right.

    Fantastic.
    Last edited by USS Utah; 08-31-2014 at 11:40 AM.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  15. #165
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    Quote Originally Posted by USS Utah View Post
    Wow, did someone besides me read a book?

    You seem to enjoy posting alone.

  16. #166
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Devildog View Post
    You seem to enjoy posting alone.
    Hey, Devildog, good to see you around here!

    I like USS Utah's reminders that there are books I should be reading. I'm still slogging through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Slow going and often depressing, but really worth reading.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  17. #167
    Quote Originally Posted by Devildog View Post
    You seem to enjoy posting alone.
    I could actually post about more books that I have read recently.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  18. #168
    I recently finished For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway. Re-read it after about 20 years. Absolutely amazing.

  19. #169
    I just read GoldFinch and All the Light We Cannot See back to back. Did not like Goldfinch at all; very disappointed after all thee hype and accolades; had to force myself through it.

    Loved All the Light We Cannot See. My wife heard the author speak at King's English in June and gave it to me for Father's Day. Betsy Burton told my wife that this book had the fastest sales ever at KE for hardover Fiction in the first three months. Its been on the NYT best seller list since spring. About two very different teenagers--one German, one French--whose lives cross during WW II. Very lyrical and poignant. You will love and believe n every character (unlike Goldfinch.)

  20. #170
    Quote Originally Posted by OrangeUte View Post
    I recently finished For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway. Re-read it after about 20 years. Absolutely amazing.
    I just finished Farewell to Arms because my son had to read it for school. I really haven't read any Hemingway; I assume it was very risque and controversial, and its short declarative writing style very new, when it was first published, but has lost that impact now.

  21. #171
    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    Someone go read The Sun Also Rises for the board Hemmingway trifecta.
    I've got it on my kindle to read soon.

    I also have the goldfinch and all the light we cannot see (concerned mentioned them anove and I know laute enjoyed goldfinch). Those are my next 3, but not sure of the order.

  22. #172
    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    I just finished Farewell to Arms because my son had to read it for school. I really haven't read any Hemingway; I assume it was very risque and controversial, and its short declarative writing style very new, when it was first published, but has lost that impact now.
    It is said that you can't like both Hemingway and Faulkner. I absolutely LOVE Faulkner, and enjoy Hemingway (but mostly his short stories). Sometimes I think his novels drag, which is weird because they are short.

  23. #173
    Quote Originally Posted by Applejack View Post
    It is said that you can't like both Hemingway and Faulkner. I absolutely LOVE Faulkner, and enjoy Hemingway (but mostly his short stories). Sometimes I think his novels drag, which is weird because they are short.
    Me too. It was interesting to me that Farewell to Arms and Sound and the Fury were both published in 1929 (I think). I have read Sound and the Fury again recently, and continue to marvel at it. Gets better every time I read it.

  24. #174
    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    Me too. It was interesting to me that Farewell to Arms and Sound and the Fury were both published in 1929 (I think). I have read Sound and the Fury again recently, and continue to marvel at it. Gets better every time I read it.
    Agreed. I reread tSatF last year - amazeballs.

  25. #175
    I'm just starting An Army at Dawn. It is the first in Rick Atkinson's trilogy about the US military in WWII/Allied liberation of Europe, starting with the North African invasion. I'm only a few dozen pages in but the writing is very good. Looking forward to finishing the series.
    Last edited by hostile; 09-04-2014 at 10:32 PM.
    "Don't apologize; it's not your fault. It's my fault for overestimating your competence."

  26. #176
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    Last edited by Devildog; 09-05-2014 at 01:41 PM.

  27. #177
    Battle Surface!: Lawson P. "Red" Ramage and the War Patrols of the USS Parche by Stephen L. Moore

    On the night of July 31, 1944, "Red" Ramage found himself inside a Japanese merchant convoy, and maneuvered his submarine USS Parche to sink two ships, as well as get torpedo hits to get shared credit for sinking three others. For this action, which came to be known as Ramage's Rampage, Red would be awarded the Medal of Honor. Ramage had commissioned Parche, after making four war patrols in command of USS Trout; after his third Trout patrol, in which 5 of the 14 torpedoes he fired turned out to be duds, Ramage criticized the Mark 14 torpedo in the face of Admiral Ralph W. Christie -- Christie had been the project officer for the Mark 14, to the point that it was often referred to as Christie's torpedo. After three patrols, command of Parche passed to the commissioning XO, Woodrow "Mac" McCrory, and the submarine made three more war patrols before the Japanese surrender. Parche would earn five battle stars and two Presidential Unit Citations, making her one of the most decorated U.S. Navy submarines of World War II. Moore's history of Parche makes for a great read.
    "It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant

  28. #178

  29. #179
    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    Wait, is LA a MarRob fan? I love Marilynne - can't wait to read Lila.

  30. #180
    Quote Originally Posted by Applejack View Post
    Wait, is LA a MarRob fan? I love Marilynne - can't wait to read Lila.

    great. It is for you too. And me.

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