Outside of ww1 and ww2 what are you reading?

[ckleisch]

I am finishing a (4) set biography by Douglas Southall Freeman on the Biography of Robert E Lee. Next up is a book called Secret Missions of the Civil War.

[Matt H.]

I've just finished George Orwell's Burmese Days and Homage to Catalonia. Homage to Catalonia makes for good reading if you like war correspondance or journalism. However, the sheer number of Republican factions in Spain is enough to make you stop in confusion.

Orwell is - to me - always worth making time for. Homage to Catlonia is strange because so much of the political intrigue he describes in detail is a now-obsolete pre-cold war view of communism, and yes, it's very confusing ("POUM! POUM!")! But furthermore, the chapters chronicling his experience as a 'volunteer' in a foreign war are a worthwhile warning to anyone, and make interesting comparisons with, for example, stories from the Angolan conflict in the seventies.

If you haven't read it, Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London" is essential. So much of it still rings true.

Other than Orwell, I recently found it interesting to read some varied views of the Falklands conflict such as "Sea Harrier over the Falklands" by 'Sharkey' Ward, and "One Hundred Days" by Admiral 'Sandy' Woodward. Considering they were on the same side, those two can't agree on much... (or don't want to admit that they agree on much...)

Zygmunt (going for coffee in Huesca)

I'd also like to pick up The Observer Years, a collection of Orwell's articles and journalism as a war correspondant from 1943-45. I think you can order it from the web page of The Guardian.

As far as the Falklands go, the book by Max Hastings & Simon Jenkins is probably your best bet. Haven't read Woodward or Ward though.

[Benoit Douville]

The biography of the actual Pope Carol Wojtyla. His story is quite interesting from his town where he was born in Wadowice to his days has the Archbishops of Krakow, when he visited Poland in 1979, the communist were so frustrated. Catholic or not you have to like that man.

Regards

[Marcus Wendel]

I've just started reading "Fascism in Spain 1923-1977" by Stanley G. Payne.

/Marcus

[1812]

I am about to begin Suicide Squads. About the japanese kamikazes.

[KalaVelka]

Clancys Rainbow Six in English ofcorse

Kasper

[Foelkersam]

I've just read "A bend in the river" by V.S. Naipul, (in swedish "Vid flodens krök").

A very good book, my first of Naipul, he won the Nobel Prize in 2001.

/David

[Foelkersam]

Hi, i just read "Journey to the End of the Night " by Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

First published in 1932, "Journey to the End of the Night" is regarded as Celine's masterpiece.
It is told in the first person and is based on his own experiences during the First World War, in French colonial Africa; in the USA - where he worked for a while at the Ford factory in Detroit; and later as a young doctor in a working class suburb in Paris. The novel gives a picture of those years as seen by an underdog.

Celine is very much the product of his age and was particularly marked - like so may other writers - by the senseless carnage of the First World War.

Celine's disgust with human folly, malice, greed and the mess that man has made of society and of his own environment lies behind the bitterness and bile that distinguishes his writing and gives it its force. This is exemplified in the superb portraits of mainly ordinary human beings coping with their lives as best they can; caught in poverty or their obsessions - hindered from evading traps of their own making by ignorance and prejudice.

A very goog book indeed, buy it, read it!

The title in swedish; "Resa till nattens ände".

/David

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both brother Waffen 1-2-3 and the community as a whole. Well sir, in reference to your inquiry of Wednesday - February 04, 2004 - 8:40pm, old Uncle Bob recently acquired the following work of literature. The work in question is entitled as THUNDER RUN: The Armored Strike To Capture Baghdad. The author is David Zucchino and the publisher is Atlantic Monthly Press of New York. The publishing year is 2004. I have NOT yet had a chance to start reading this contemporary work, but from an outward glance, it does appear to be a promising labor of love. I guess we'll see - won't we!? In anycase, I would like to bid you a copacetic day over in the Palmetto State.

Best Regards,
Uncle Bob 8)

[Kunikov]

"Free Jerusalem: Heroes, Heroines, and Rogues who created the State of Israel" Zev Golan

[Brotherhood of the Cross]

Just finished (3rd time) "Das Heilige und das Profane" by Mircea Eliade (an excellent book written by one of the greatest relligion hystorians). And
"Os Romenos, Latinos Do Oriente". That's another good one by the same author for those interested in the Romanian history/spirituality.

and
"Baudolino" by Umberto Eco

[Victor]

Just finished The History of the Foreign Legion 1831-1981 by Georges Blond. A very pleasurable reading.

[Daryl Leeworthy]

Just finished La Peste by Albert Camus, a brilliant piece of literature and a great allegory for the Nazi occupation of France in WW2. The joys of A Level French Literature!

[Wally]

Into the Bermuda Triangle by Gian Quasar. Very interesting book about the mysteries surrounding this area. The author has some interesting points about this area of the globe and why many airplanes & ships have vanished according to his theories and studies.

Wally

[Kunikov]

"The Eve of Destruction: The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War" by Howard Blum