Favorite books?

[Jackal1]

Favorite book of all....The 13th Valley by John M. Del Vecchio.
Never understood why this book was not made into a movie, but probably just as well since Hollyweird would have made a mess of it.
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Peter Hathaway Capstick

Death In The Long Grass
Death In The Dark Continent
Death In The Silent Places
Death In A Lonely Land
The Last Ivory Hunter
Maneaters
A Return To The Long Grass

This guy can put you there without a doubt. Great books.
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John Ross

Unintended Consequences

This one I read recently got on a tip from Laz.
Don`t pick this one up if you have anything against red eyes. It`s more than difficult to put down.
A great read with a lot of little known facts worked in.

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John D. McDonald

All of the Travis McGee series.
Great books to kill a rainy afternoon.

[DDogs98]

I have too many to list and I have read a few what's has been mentioned.  As an all time favorite I would add Len Deighton's Bomber to the list.  It's fiction but was carefully researched.

I have just finished The Few - about small number of American pilots in the Battle of Britain.  (I didn't know that the first Eagle Squadron did not go operational until just after the official end of BOB).  This book is about Fiske, Donahue, Keogh, Tobin and Mamedoff who arrived just as the last boats were leaving Dunkerque.  None of them survived to Dec 7. 1941.

I got Hell Hawks for father's day and I'm looking forward tucking into it this weekend.  It's about the 365th FG of the 9th AF...air to mud Jug squadrons that did close air support from D-Day to VE-Day.

BTW - Minoru Genda (the Monk) was the staff officer (on Yamamoto's staff (equivalent to CNO in our Navy)) that recognized the significance of shallow-water torpedo technology (Brit Swordfish against the Italian fleet at Taranto) and how it could be applied to the Japanese situation.  He developed the idea, submitted it to Yamamoto, designed the shallow-water fins for the JN arial torpedo, supervised the training, and developed the attack plan.  Nagumo was the flag officer that executed the plan.  Genda was a brilliant man and was the number 2 guy in the Japanese government in the mid-late 70's. He was also a member of the Zero Fighter Pilot's Association and he had the distinction of surviving the sinking of the Battleship Yamato in 1944.  He passed away in 1989.

On the point though...if Yamamoto had been the operational commander I think he would have ordered the third attack...arranged a refueling and steamed to the southwest to hunt the US carriers.  He knew the value of the US Carriers and the wisdom of the 'hammer blow' at Pearl.  Because the carriers escaped, Yamamoto knew it wouldn't be long before the tide turned in the Pacific.

Sorry to spew so much, guys.  I think it's great that everyone is reading the really good books about this era of flight, combat and world history.

Raider

PS.  For Texas Mom.  As a born-again Texan I finished Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans by T.R. Fehrenbach over Christmas/New Years.  Now if I can just master the long-neck in the back pocket thing, I'll qualify for citizenship.   

[texasmom]

PS.  For Texas Mom.  As a born-again Texan I finished Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans by T.R. Fehrenbach over Christmas/New Years.  Now if I can just master the long-neck in the back pocket thing, I'll qualify for citizenship.   

I must confess, I'm relatively new to Texas.  My children learned more about the history of Texas from their grade school teachings than I knew ~ and they don't hesitate to remind me of it.   I have read a so-so book on notable Texas Women... most of them didn't seem that impressive, although I was struck by Bessie Coleman! What an amazing gal she was! 

Thanks for the book title there, I'll find it & read it this summer!

[ink]

my favorite book is any Conan, the cool thing is Robert Howard ( the creator of Conan) was from Texas, sad part is he killed himself in 1936, after his mom died.

someone else mentioned "the 13th valley" that was also a very good book. about Vietnam.

if you want a great book read "The Count of Monte Cristo" very good read.

[SpazMan]

Ones with pictures only......

[Saxman]

The Lord of the Rings

[VonMessa]

Too long a list (in no particular order).......

All Quiet on the Western Front

A Separate Peace

On the Road

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Swiss Family Robinson

Catch 22

Catcher in the Rye

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

(Just to name a few)

[ink]

The Lord of the Rings

if you like LOTR,

try out Terry Brooks's  The Shanara series,   the first three are insanely good, the third one is called "The Wishsong of Shanara" this can be read as a single book it is one of the greatest fantasy books ever written.

way better than LOTR

IMO

[APDrone]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Entire collection ( all 5 books of the trilogy )

[Adonai]

I have quite a few books in a collection I started when I was young, believe 3 stand out for me -
Achtung Panzer! (About German Panzer Army)
Iron Coffen (About the U-boats)
Luftwaffe Aces (About luftwaffe pilots and tactics by adolf galland)

[Nisky]

"Enemy at the Gates" about the entire battle at Stalingrad from both sides. Yes they made a movie off of it but its one small part of the book.
"Tigers in the Mud" The combat history of Otto Carius
"The Mighty Eighth" History of the 8th air force.

But my all time favorite book is "Lord of the Rings" and almost all Robin Cook books. Im addicted to them medical thrillers.

[lasersailor184]

my favorite book is any Conan, the cool thing is Robert Howard ( the creator of Conan) was from Texas, sad part is he killed himself in 1936, after his mom died.

someone else mentioned "the 13th valley" that was also a very good book. about Vietnam.

if you want a great book read "The Count of Monte Cristo" very good read.

Good call on the Count of Monte Cristo.  It's nothing like the two movies that have been made.  It's so much more evil and devious.

[Saxman]

if you like LOTR,

try out Terry Brooks's  The Shanara series,   the first three are insanely good, the third one is called "The Wishsong of Shanara" this can be read as a single book it is one of the greatest fantasy books ever written.

way better than LOTR

IMO

Bzzzzzzzzzt!

Read them. Brooks didn't even TRY to disguise having ripped his characters right out of LotR. They were ok, but I never got around to reading the  Voyage of the Jerle Shannarra because they just weren't worth it. The Rhapsody series and Wayfarer's Redemption are by FAR superior to Brooks (Rhapsody being the second-best fantasy series I've read). Hell, even the endless and repetitive preaching of Goodkind is more enjoyable, (thank GOD he remembered he's writing a FANTASY series in the Final Three and that the Cold War has been over for 20 years) but even they don't come close to LotR.

Since we're on the classics:

Agreed on Monte Cristo. Also, I LOVED Ivanhoe. The language can be difficult, but well worth the effort.

[Cypher]

"Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy Well really anything by Clancy is my favorite.

[Simaril]

Military books:

Guadalcanal by Richard Franks. It's a history, but the guy does a great job keeping it a narrative so it reads like the gripping story that Cactus was! Franks makes sure that each part of this combined arms battle gets equal attention - -the naval battles, the ground troops, the air battles get equal time, detail and respect. One of the few books I've read multiple times, and I've enjoyed it every time.

Fire in the Sky: the Air War in South Pacific by Eric Bergerud. He does a magnificent job of tying together oral history, narrative history, and documentation so there's a seamless explanation of what flying and fighting in this nasty theater was like. By the way, at one point Bergerud was an AH player and squad member...not sure if he's still around.

Band of Brothers by Steven Ambrose.

Six Armies at Normandy by John Keegan. Great military history, about the Normandy Campaign. Includes the invasion but unlike many other books it follows what came after, and why the battle went the way it did.

On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace by Donald Kagan. Amazing work that looks at 4-5 conflicts from the Peloponnesian War to the Cold War, and explains the common thread that ties them together. Convincingly claims that deterrent strength and clear communication of acceptable limits could minimize outbreak of war.




Good reads:

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian on through Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian. Don't think that the movie in any way represents the stories! There are 20 volumes in this series...and they've been called the best historical fiction ever written by the New York Times Book Review. Somehow O'Brian's writing manages to keep the action adventure people happy, while still being high quality enough that many have called his work "literature" in the college english class sense. The Jack Aubry/Stephen Maturin partnership is one of the best I've ever read, and the characterizations are so good that these guys simply become real. Best of all, O'Brian manages to completely capture the feel of the Napoleonic era so that you walk away thinking "that was what it really was like."

Lord of the Rings