I just finished "His Dark Materials" trilogy ("The Golden Compass", "The Subtle Knife", & "The Amber Spyglass") by Philip Pullman. I was reading "Killing Rommel" by Stephen Pressfield, but I had to return it to the library before I finished it. I'm back on the waiting list!

Jim

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives by Jim Sheeler (Hardcover - May 1, 2008)

A book that will make you cry and proud at the same time. Stories of young men who gave their "last full measure of devotion" and those service members whose job it is to make that notification knock at the door, stay with the families and bring honor and dignity to the departed. A very good read - highly recommend it.

I'm reading the Art of War, By Sun Tzu.

Wow! Alot of devoted history readers here! I'm all modeled out, just finished "M1 Abrams in Battle" Getting ready to start "M1A" Abrams in detail".

Reading Dennis Winter's 'Haig's command - a reassessment' at the moment. Major work of fiction and to be avoided at all costs. It's amazing that the author of a book as good as 'Death's men' could have perpetrated this farrago of conspiracy-theory nuttiness.

David

Hi
the last book in the Liveship trilogy by Robin Hobb.

Tedious and frustrating at times and massively over complicated but worth sticking with.
I'm sure it will all come good in the end.

Cheers
Peter

"Thunder below" by Eugene Fluckey - CO of the Barb - a wwII gato class sub.

Interesting read. Recomendable!

I'm (finally) slogging my way through Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Very readable, but a little dated compared to modern scholarship (I discussed some of Shirer's examples and "facts" with one of my German professors who specialized in the Third Reich, he dismissed a lot of them as old legends that are now debunked. Always remember that history is never static, especially with something as heavily researched as the Second World War.). So far I'm 300 pages into the 1100 page tome. Next up is a volume of Shirer's memoirs/history of Europe in the 30s-40s called the Nightmare Years.

You should check out Paxton's work on Vichy France. I attended one of his lectures during my years at St Francis Xavier, his personal story of fighting French historians and the national archives was very interesting (in case you don't know, France is regarded as particularly difficult to research because the national archives are very selective with what information is released and what names are exposed). His big work of controversy (now considered gospel on Vichy) was Vichy France, Old Guards and New Order - 1972.

"Tigers in the Mud" by Carius.
Learning things about Tigers in combat I never would have thought of, like throwing tracks while backing up.

Good read.
Shaun

I finished chicken hawk for the second time,Im reading sharpes Tiger at the moment,and im awaiting delivery of Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell his latest.its about an English archer during the agincourt battle

I've not long finished "Steel Victory' by Harry Yeide. It's about the independent tank battalions of the US during WWII from Normandy onwards... A good read, with good info...
Brad

History of Modern Britain, by Andrew Marr. Not military per se more politics and economics but India, Palestine, Cold War, Suez, Falklands, Northern Ireland covered mainly with respect to the incompetence of the ruling classes. Great read.

Just started reading Not A Good Day To Die the untold story of operation anaconda by Sean Naylor just finished the prologue.

Last Stand!
Impossible Victories
At All Costs!
Sieze And Hold

All by Bryan Perrett

Just finished "General Kenny Reports" by George C. Kenny. It's interesting and has a lot of anecdotes. I am , however, a bit skeptical of the claims he makes about enemy planes shot down. For instance, an attacking forces of 30 Japanes bombers escorted by 25 fighters would be intercepted by 12 P-38's. The P-38's would shoot down 20 bombers and 17 fighters with a loss of 2 of their own. Same with the P-40.

If this sort of thing happened once or twice, it might be creditable, but it goes on from his being put in command of the SW pacific air force in 1942 through the end of the war.

It does however do a good job of explaining the development of new techniques like skip bombing and the use of parafrag bombs. There's a good description of the development of the "strafer" B-25 by Pappy Gunn. He was the guy who managed to stick a 75mm cannon in the nose of a B-25.

I have to mention one fiction book I read recently that, along with the movie of the same name is one of the best I've ever read: The Cruel Sea by Nicolas Montserrat. The movie starred Jack Hawkins and follwed the book quite closely but neccesarily was abbreviated.

Steve

Hi Jim i'vejust finished reading Wildfire myself last week what an awesome book i could not put it down in fact i actually read Plum Island first then the second John Corey story The Lion's Game and finally Wildfire . Just out of curiousity have you read any of the other books by Nelson DeMille i especially liked the Paul Brennan novels The General's Daughter and the follow up Up Country i've also read all the novels by Tom Clancy (including the powerplays/op-centre/net-force series) and i've read all the books by Patrick Robinson

Have you by any chance read any of the Andy McNab novels they are thoroughly enjoyable reads

Currently in The Guns of August. Also working my way through the History of Modern Civilization by William Durrant. Currenlty in vol. IV.

I'm currently re-reading WEB Griffin's The Corps series to get myself into the Pacific for an upcoming project I have in mind. SOOOOO entertaining, and extremely interesing how he creates the human links in the story. Plus there is a few stories of the pre-war conflicts in the Pacific Islands. VERY very interesting stories about the Australian Coastwatchers and how important they were.