Next Sunday, March 19th, server permitting, we will begin our first Armorama reading group. We will be reading the book, An Army at Dawn, by Rick Atkinson. Although this is a “reading” group that does not mean that anybody who has not read the book can’t join in. If you feel you have anything pertinent to say on the subject of Operation Torch, or the Allied campaign to take Tunisia from the west by all means you will be welcome.



For those of you who have the book here are the plans.



The book is divided into three parts. Each part is divided into a number of number and named units that I believe should be referred to as chapters. Each chapter is further divided into smaller units, that for clarity’s sake I’ll call sections. These sections are named after passages from the section, such as “a meeting with the Dutchman.”



We will discuss one chapter at a time. These chapters are normally between 40 and 60 pages long. The first chapter will also include the prologue, and the last one will include the epilogue. Each Sunday we will begin discussing the chapter that we read the week before. So for those of you following along in the book we should be reading the prologue and chapter one, from page 1 through page 67 in my trade paperback edition. This also brings up the point of using page numbers. Since we might not all have the same edition, or even the same translation, I suggest that if you have a particular passage you want to discuss you might use the same convention the author did concerning his notes. Mention the section title, i.e. A meeting with the Dutchman, and the beginning words of the paragraph the passage is in, i.e. a few minutes pas 10 a.m. That would refer to the opening paragraph of the first section of the first chapter, pg 21 in my edition.



I realize that many, if not all, of the people in this reading group have probably read ahead in the book. I myself am on page 210. I know it will be hard to do but if we can I suggest trying to keep to the chapter we’re discussing, rather than skipping ahead. Once in a while it might be necessary to refer back to chapters we’ve already read, but let’s try not to get ahead of ourselves.



Please feel free to bring in information from other sources, books, movies, websites, etc, that can bring even more understanding to this reading group.



Personally I am really looking forward to this and I hope it’s just the first of many more to come.

Hope to see you all next Sunday

My suggestion.........
If you're a bookworm (like me ) get yourself a "Sharps" book or something else to keep you occupied while reading An Army at Dawn. If you don't have something else to keep you occupied, you will breeze through An Army at Dawn faster than the reading group does. May sound dumb reading 2 or even 3 books at one time but it will prevent you from reading way ahead in the book club selection and missing something in the discussion. Most of us have multiple model builds going at one time so this is really no different.

My 2cents.
Hermon

Sounds great, Rodger.

I'll have to backtrack quite a bit, but I think our discussion will make it worth it. And, of course, maybe I'll finish the book.

There are some awesome battles ahead, fellas!

Yeah, I usually have 2-3 books going at once, and usually on vastly different topics just to keep from getting bogged down in one.

OTOH, I get into time crunches & reading usally drops to last place.

Anyway, wherever possible I'll "cheat" ahead in reading for this just to be sure I stay on schedule overall.

I started a notebook of my reading for this so I think I can remember my thoughts for scheduled discusions.

John