Grand unified books thread

[Eddie Teach]

Reading 'The Second World War' by Antony Beevor, I may give up because it's so depressing.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good narrative general history of the conflict, but the stupidity, hate, mistakes and horrifying personal testimonies it a bit much.

Are you not entertained?

I'm wondering how Mongers has spent so much time here in spite of evidently knowing nothing at all about the most famous war in history. 

[mongers]

Reading 'The Second World War' by Antony Beevor, I may give up because it's so depressing.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good narrative general history of the conflict, but the stupidity, hate, mistakes and horrifying personal testimonies it a bit much.

Are you not entertained?

I'm wondering how Mongers has spent so much time here in spite of evidently knowing nothing at all about the most famous war in history. 

[mongers]

Is Ken Burn's 'Vietnam War' book worth a read?

Limited time, so not willing to read an overly long book if it's without many insights and is a just a general overview.

[Jacob]

Got a few books recently:

Viking-Age War Fleets: Shipbuilding, resource management and maritime warfare in 11th-century Denmark by Morten Ravn

Women & Weapons in the Viking World: Amazons of the North by Leszek Gardela

Archaeology and the Sea: in Scandinavia and Britain by Ole Crumlin-Pedersen

[mongers]

Got a few books recently:

Viking-Age War Fleets: Shipbuilding, resource management and maritime warfare in 11th-century Denmark by Morten Ravn

Women & Weapons in the Viking World: Amazons of the North by Leszek Gardela

Archaeology and the Sea: in Scandinavia and Britain by Ole Crumlin-Pedersen

Very interesting topics those, Jacob.

Short reviews after you've done with them?

[Habbaku]

Anyone have any recommendations for histories on pre-20th century Ireland?

[Sheilbh]

Roy Foster's Modern Ireland (1600-1972) is very good.

I haven't read it but I imagine Paul Bew's Ireland: The Politics of Enmity (1789-2006) would also be good, and I have read his biography of Parnell so I imagine really strong on the 19th century.

This Great Calamity by Christine Kinealy is excellent on the famine (but should probably be read with Tim Pat Coogan's The Famine Plot).

I'm not really sure for anything pre-Stuart settlement/Cromwell.

[Habbaku]

Roy Foster's Modern Ireland (1600-1972) is very good.

Looks like a good enough fit. Thanks!

I'm not really sure for anything pre-Stuart settlement/Cromwell.

This is really what I was after, too.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally bought a new cookbook - it looks awful. But that is a good sign, I think. Apparently it was written for Pakistani/North Indian students moving to the West for university and how to cook home-style food ("without your home kitchen or cook").

The recipes look very good (and each has a photo of how it looks at the end which has clearly just been taken by digital camera/phone and not styled or touched up which I appreciate), but I really love the amateur author's asides as well like in the intro to chapli kebabs he notes that there are very good ones in a village near Abbotabad - and then, in brackets, "where Osama bin Laden lived and was eventually killed, incidentally"

[The Brain]

I'm reading World War I Illustrated Atlas: Campaigns and Battles from 1914 to 1918, by Neiberg. It seems generally reasonable so far, though I've seen some errors (Tokyo moves around a bit). It has one problem that it shares with almost all English language historical atlases: borders and frontlines are given as "soft" kinda-somewhere-here lines, even when exactly known. Why wouldn't I want exact info just because it's a historical atlas? This always weirds me out. Granted, it's a bit better here than in the worst examples of the type.

Apparently the author is one of those people who can tell you about divisions on a map but is completely clueless about major world events. Under a photo of Lenin: "...the Germans smuggled Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin into St. Petersburg in 1917. He soon began a revolution against Tsar Nicholas II." I mean really.

[grumbler]

For the interested Yanks, the United States Naval Institute Press is offering a fabulous deal until Christmas: 50% off list price and free shipping.  You don't need to be a member (in fact, the deal is better than members get).  If you've been looking to fill out your collection of Norman Friedman Illustrated Design History books, or to get that copy of Kaigun that always seemed overpriced, now is your moment.

[Eddie Teach]

Moonlighting as a book salesman?

[grumbler]

Moonlighting as a book salesman?

Moonlighting as a book buyer who wants to let other book buyers know about a good deal.

If I was a salesman I would have linked to the purchase page. 

[Maladict]

For the interested Yanks, the United States Naval Institute Press is offering a fabulous deal until Christmas: 50% off list price and free shipping.  You don't need to be a member (in fact, the deal is better than members get).  If you've been looking to fill out your collection of Norman Friedman Illustrated Design History books, or to get that copy of Kaigun that always seemed overpriced, now is your moment.

Kaigun it is. Thanks! 

[The Brain]

Finished Rise of the Tang Dynasty: The Reunification of China and the Military Response to the Steppe Nomads AD581-626, by Romane. It's a book of two halves. First is 130 pages of a straight narrative of the period in question, essentially a condensed version of the Chinese histories, complete with anecdotes of individual martial skill etc. Then 75 pages of appendices dealing with more general subject matters like East-West contacts and Central Asia in the ancient era, military geography of China, Chinese cities etc. Overall I think the book is fine for what it is, its main purpose is to make the information available to English speakers who don't feel like reading the sources. One oddity is that, while it does have some nice color plates, there are no maps at all in the book. Now maps in military history books are less important to me than to some readers, I rarely follow the action in detail on a map while reading a text. But a map of China with the various provinces and major cities would have been helpful I think, Western readers are generally less familiar with the relative positions of Chinese provinces than say those of European countries.