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Read any good books lately?


charlie8575

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I just finished "No Easy Days" by Mark Owen. I'm into modern day military books, especially spec ops, this book is really good. One of my favorite authors is Dick Couch, he has a series on SEAL training and a couple about SEALs in Iraq and afganastan. He also wrote another book detailing Army Special Forces training. I would definitely recommend any of these books, and no, there's no tactical secrets or classified material leaked in his book like the news channels have been talking about, it's just what happened from one of the SEALs that was there.

Have you tried any Richard Marcinko books ? http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Warrior-Richard-Marcinko/dp/0671795937/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462722581&sr=8-2&keywords=richard+marcinko+books

The first two or three are really great, after that kinda lose with the facts.

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  • 4 months later...

I'm in the process of reading "Cannonball" by Brock Yates and "American Muscle Supercars". It's all about the cars made by Yenko, Motion Performance, Mr. Norm and others.

Brock's last run

http://www.autonews.com/article/20161006/RETAIL03/161009898/brock-yates-car-and-driver-editor-and-cannonball-run-founder-dies-at

Por que você deveria conhecer Brock Yates - FlatOut!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brock_Yates

51zFJ1erKAL._SX336_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Edited by plastic-mechanic
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  • 3 weeks later...

There are two books I'm reading with any regularity at the moment.

One is 1775: A Good Year for a Revolution by Kevin Phillips. It builds a very good argument that the American Revolution actually started in 1774 and was fully under way by 1775, and examines the religious, economic, social and political factors at play. A most interesting read.

The other is Operation Nemesis by Eric Bogosian. Yes, Eric Bogosian the actor, and is now able to add historian to his titles.

Bogosian researched the assassination of Talat Pasha, the mastermind of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, as well as the assassinations of several other major leaders of the Young Turks, several of whom were convicted in Turkey in absentia and sentenced to death.

This book is astoundingly good- I say it deserves some kind of award for both research and prose. I highly, highly recommend it.

Charlie Larkin

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Just finished F. Scott Fitzgerald's Collected Stories. Same guy who wrote The Great Gatsby. I'd only read that and one other of his novels previously. All of his short stories seem to be drawn from episodes of his own life. He relates the feelings of youth, love, loss and disappointment very eloquently, without ever being whiny or preachy. Quite a feat.

About 3/4 through Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (Douglas Brinkley). Written in conjunction with Ford's 100th anniversary in 2003, it's a sweeping overview of just what it says it's about. Unfortunately from my own perspective, the author is neither engineer nor "car guy", and the technical mistakes and omissions are disappointing. For instance, the '32 Ford, a real landmark in the company's product line with its one-year-only body and chassis tooling, plus its first V8 engine in any "affordable" car, is glossed over, and the '32 is quite mistakenly lumped in with the '33-'34 as being virtually the same car all 3 years...which it isn't. At all.

The emphasis is overwhelmingly on personalities and interpersonal conflicts, and isn't what I was looking for...at all.

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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 I'm usually too busy to read books at home anymore. 

:D  I only take time to read non-work-related things in bed at night. Relaxes me and puts me to sleep. Usually have several things to choose from, as I don't always feel like fiction or history or whatever. Also tends to make getting through some books take a while.  

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:D  I only take time to read non-work-related things in bed at night. Relaxes me and puts me to sleep. Usually have several things to choose from, as I don't always feel like fiction or history or whatever. Also tends to make getting through some books take a while.  

Yes it does, not a whole lot different from finding unfinished models in the stash, "Oh, what's this ? A book with a book mark half way through?"

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Reading Bruce Springsteen's autobiography 'Born to Run' now, just finished John Sandford's 'Escape Clause' (a Virgil Flowers Minnesota crime thriller), and just started John Grisham's 'The Whistler'.  I try and read an hour or so before going to bed on my Kindle every evening...relaxes my mind. 

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  • 2 years later...

Just finished this, published in 2015. 304 pages. Thoroughly researched (including first-hand tours of mills and a fascinating trip on one of the few remaining Great Lakes ore boats), and well-written by a guy who obviously has feeling for the subject. Quite poetic at times, even when speaking of slag:

"When the Earth formed, it must have looked something like buoyant burnt rock floating on a pink liquid-iron core, slightly astir and flaming at the places where rock masses imperfectly shifted past one another. The men and women who make steel can look down on this miniaturized replay of Earth's creation every day, peering upon the formation of worlds". 

The book traces the development of the technology, the industry, and its decline in America after WW II due to mismanagement and greed on the part of executives and unions both, government intervention, and changing global social and economic conditions. Highly recommended.

                                              Steel: From Mine to Mill, the Metal That Made America by Brooke C Stoddard: Used

 

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Just read The 100 Hour War, about the 1969 Honduras-Salvador so-called "Soccer War." Probably the definitive treatise on the topic, with lots of great photos, most I've never seen before.

Just finished G-Man, the latest Stephen Hunter Bob Lee Swagger thriller. A ripping good tale, as always from Hunter. 

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Such a varied range of topics! There's something for everyone.

Our apartment complex has a book club which meets monthly.  Probably the best was Boys In the Boat which celebrates the 1936 U.S. men’s Olympic eight-oar rowing team—nine working class boys who stormed the rowing world, transformed the sport, and galvanized the attention of millions of Americans.

The current book is Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. This is the book that inspired the PBS series of the same name. Although it would probably be of more interest to women (not that there is anything wrong with that), it does point out how primitive things were in poor London even by the 1950s.

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51WjdgfBfsL.jpgI do recommend our friend Rick Rothermel's "The One That Kills You". A really good read. And Michael Connelley's latest "Dark Sacred Night" has just been released. Let's face it, he's been doing it for over a quarter century and he is the master of the mystery novel.

Edited by Modlguy
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