Grand unified books thread

[jimmy olsen]

Herodotus also tells the story (IIRC) about "fighting in the shade" and the Persians attacking via hidden paths.

Not all about the movie is wrong.

Only so far as Herodotus is right.   

Herodotus' book sometimes sounds much like what one would get if one attempted to write a history of WW2 today by asking some random guys in a bar what happened. 

Heh, Perry Bible Fellowship. Too sad that he stopped writing - one of the best webcomics around.

Oh really?

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/harlots-web/

[11B4V]

Nothing to do all weekend, except


https://www.amazon.com/Armoured-Warfare-Budapest-Norbert-Számvéber/dp/6155583099

[viper37]

Did someone here read some of these books?
https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMichael+J.+Sullivan&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

Are they worth it?

[Agelastus]

Did someone here read some of these books?
https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMichael+J.+Sullivan&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

Are they worth it?

I've read the "Riyria Revelations" (their first series, which judging by that list is chronologically the last - IIRC "Michael J. Sullivan" is a nom-de-plume for a pair of writers.)

I remember the books as being readable but nothing special; while I enjoyed it I believe I started speed reading part way through the second omnibus volume. Certainly not worth modern paperback prices. Possibly worth Kindle prices.

[viper37]

ok, thank you very much!  I'll pass on this series, try something else

[Syt]

Humble Bundle has a collection of pulp fiction - Mickey Spillane, Gore Vidal, George Axelrod, Ed McBain, and others. Less than 24 hours to go! https://www.humblebundle.com/books/pulp-fiction-books?hmb_source=navbar&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=tile_index_6

[jimmy olsen]

If I may recommend a regimental to B4 and the other grognards here, try

Mother May You Never See the Sights I Have Seen: The Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac, 1864-1865

https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Never-Sights-Have-Seen/dp/0060162570

This comprehensive, muster-to-disbandment account of a regiment involved in Ulysses S. Grant's Overland campaign is an unusually detailed study of men at war, as well as a superb unit history. In the thick of the battles of Spotsylvania, the Wilderness and Petersburg, the 57th Massachusetts probably suffered more casualties than any other in the Army of the Potomac. Wilkinson, a long-time student of the Civil War, quotes diaries and letters in which soldiers discuss weapons, uniforms, rations, sanitation, the enemy, rumors, battles, wounds, spiritual crises, and their diminishing chances of returning home alive. One wonders if any other regiment in history contained so many articulate writers. The book includes a fresh look at the Crater incident during the Petersburg siege, in which black soldiers were massacred by Confederates. An appendix includes mini-biographies of each member of the 57th--more than 1000 men. Photos.

[Grey Fox]

Did someone here read some of these books?
https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMichael+J.+Sullivan&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

Are they worth it?

I do, I like them, alot. Worth the money. Reading is latest right now.

[Valmy]

One wonders if any other regiment in history contained so many articulate writers.

In the 19th century it seems like you were either illiterate or wrote in impressive flowery prose with little space in between.

[11B4V]

If I may recommend a regimental to B4 and the other grognards here, try

Mother May You Never See the Sights I Have Seen: The Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac, 1864-1865

https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Never-Sights-Have-Seen/dp/0060162570

This comprehensive, muster-to-disbandment account of a regiment involved in Ulysses S. Grant's Overland campaign is an unusually detailed study of men at war, as well as a superb unit history. In the thick of the battles of Spotsylvania, the Wilderness and Petersburg, the 57th Massachusetts probably suffered more casualties than any other in the Army of the Potomac. Wilkinson, a long-time student of the Civil War, quotes diaries and letters in which soldiers discuss weapons, uniforms, rations, sanitation, the enemy, rumors, battles, wounds, spiritual crises, and their diminishing chances of returning home alive. One wonders if any other regiment in history contained so many articulate writers. The book includes a fresh look at the Crater incident during the Petersburg siege, in which black soldiers were massacred by Confederates. An appendix includes mini-biographies of each member of the 57th--more than 1000 men. Photos.

I'll check it out

[Savonarola]

Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams

Cocaine is one hell of a drug

Some interesting ideas; some idiosyncratic ones (especially in the parts where Freud interprets his own dreams.)  The book was huge influence on both the surrealists as well as stream-of-consciousnesses writers.  (The translation is notoriously difficult, so parts of the book do read like "Finnegan's Wake.)

My favorite parts where the footnotes which Freud uses both to take pot-shots at Jung and to take credit for Jung's work.  (I learned from the end notes that Jung was Freud's first non-Jewish disciple.)

[Syt]

[Savonarola]

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Moll is a greedy whore who gives us an account of her wicked, wicked life; where everything is accounted for in terms of pounds, shillings and pence.  (Some critics see this as an early indictment of capitalism; and one of Marx's critiques of the bourgeois is that they reduce every relationship to money.)  At times it comes across as Defoe is simply trying to write the most lurid thing he can come up with; as bigamy, shoplifting, infanticide, robbery, prostitution, pick pocketing, and horse thieving are all part of the narrative.  Defoe's style is straightforward and, given the subject matter, that makes it kind of funny.

I learned they burned counterfeiters at the stake in 17th Century England.   

At the end of the book Moll and one of her husbands are sent to Virginia as punishment for their many crimes.  She sails up "That mighty river the Potomac."  I thought that was funny, since the book was first published in 1722; before there was even a George Washington, much less a Washington DC.

[The Brain]

Cruel and unusual was OK back then.

[KRonn]

I read "Killing Patton". It had good info and showed the likely perps who tried to kill him and why. Even talked about the head of the OSS (precursor to the CIA) who gave an operative the go ahead to kill Patton. But the book makes no conclusions nor has definitive info on if the accident that killed Patton was purposefully done.

"Washington's Immortals". Good, in depth book of the American Revolution. It's about certain elite regiments, mainly from Maryland, that had formed before the revolution for the state's defense. Without the actions of these units the colonists may not have won war. They made the difference in a number of battles. One notable event was when Washington's army was trapped on Manhattan and these units halted the British advances, delaying the battle over night so that the army was able to  escape across the river. Lots of good insight into the revolution along with discussions of these particular units.