Members B-Bottom Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Anyone read any good books latley? I'm particular to American History, the civil war especially. Although if you've just read a good interesting book, regardless of the genre and whether it was fiction or non fiction I'd be interested in hearing about it as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sixgun77 Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. The Life and Times of Sitting Bull is very good as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FreestyleIntruder Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emprov Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 For historical stuff, I really dig Ken Follett. Jackdaws is about the French Revolution in WWII, really good read, check it out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members King Kashue Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 If you want a good history, not a narrative, but accessible scholarship, read Peter Brown, the Rise of Western Christendom or either of his books on Late Antiquity...Brown is brilliant beyond measure... For fiction, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides or The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton (the latter is a short, fun read, but a book that leads you to ask questions)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members beam Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 If you want to go a little bit further back.... War Before Civilization The author was a professor of mine in college. While he is a little crazy...he know's his {censored}. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KeroseneTrewthe Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Black by Ted Dekker was awesome. Not historical or anything just a good fast read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gaui Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 The Tin drum by Gunther Grass or Mikhali Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. Great books, on my favorite list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FreestyleIntruder Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Originally posted by beam If you want to go a little bit further back.... War Before Civilization The author was a professor of mine in college. While he is a little crazy...he know's his {censored}. My progress tutor at uni wrote this one: Communication Engineering Principles I haven't read it but I'm sure it's lovely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members beam Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Originally posted by FreestyleIntruder My progress tutor at uni wrote this one: Communication Engineering Principles I haven't read it but I'm sure it's lovely I'll stick with my own kind thank you, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flatcat Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Some American History favorites: * Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (the book about the Lewis & Clark Expedition - it's an amazing story) * The Robert Caro biographies of Lyndon Johnson, especially the most recent volume, 'Master of the Senate'. They're all great reads, and it's also a fascinating story. * The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes. The Making of the Atomic Bomb was especially good, I thought. * The Prize by Daniel Yergin, about the birth and development of the oil industry was a really interesting read as well. * The David McCullough biographies of Truman and Adams are enjoyable reads. John Toland's biography of Adolf Hitler is also a very good read, even if it's a little old. For Civil War stuff, my recent reads on that period (a book about the Lincoln assassination, and a book about the impact of the Civil War on five presidents that served in it) were only so-so. I haven't read a good Civil War book in a while now. If you haven't read Grant's memoirs, you should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sludgebass69 Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Originally posted by flatcat * The David McCullough biographies of Truman and Adams are enjoyable reads. +1 Just finished John Adams, Truman is on my list...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zamfir Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Picked this up off the bookstore shelf a few weeks ago and have almost finished it: Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan Van Pelt, Holocaust: A History. (The latter was one of the scholars called in to testify in the trial of David Irving, the Holocaust denier). Excellent general introduction in one volume to the gigantic subject of the Holocaust -- it's a broad survey from various angles of thinking about it. Very accessible to non-historians, though it is packed with information that might take some getting used to for non-academics. Still, they've taken great care with their writing style to make it accessible. There are a few nits I have with it. Misspelling a Romanian prime minister's name (Goga, not Coga). Ignoring the political tensions between Antonescu and the Iron Guard (such that you'd think Antonescu was as much a cookie cutter firebreathing antisemite as the Iron Guardists, who lasted only a few short months in power before Antonescu kicked them out). A tendency to judge entire populations (some, though not all) in sweeping generalizations at more or less the same level of guilt across all individuals. I also would have liked to see more detail on the Wannsee Conference, but... Anyway, it's taught me a lot about the run-up to, the international environment surrounding, the actual implementation of, and larger dynamics of, the Holocaust. Despite the immense scope, it does not lose sight of the individual tragedies in the process -- the book is chock full of frightening first person anecdotes. They are also quite good with maps to delineate how varied the persecution was across different areas of Europe. I'd certainly highly recommend it. Many cool ways of thinking about the Holocaust for those who don't feel they know enough about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members lug Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Originally posted by B-Bottom Anyone read any good books latley? I'm particular to American History, the civil war especially. , regardless it was fiction or non fiction I'd be interested in hearing about it as well. The Guns of the South Toward the end of the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee knows he needs a miracle if the Confederacy is to survive. A miracle appears, in the person of an oddly dressed stranger with a new, devastating infantry weapon which the stranger calls an 'AK-47'. Armed with full-auto firepower against blackpowder rifled muskets, the Confederates take Washington and enforce their secession from the Union. However, General Lee suspects that the gift of the AK-47 may come with a sinister price for the new nation he loves so dearly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Monkabutt Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder. Story of the SS Central America which sank in a hurricane in 1857 while carrying 600 passergers back from the California gold rush. Only 200 people survived and 21 tons of California gold were lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tlaloc Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. Probably one of the strangest books I've read (being that I havent read any other Vonnegut than this and that I dont read all that much anyways..) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bluesman0511 Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members D Aussie Posted May 18, 2005 Members Share Posted May 18, 2005 Nausea, Jean Paul Satr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bluesman0511 Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 Steven King's "Dark Tower" series... 7 books in all Starts with "The Gunslinger" This is fantasy, not exactly horror like his rep suggests... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 78pbass Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 Originally posted by Tlaloc Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. Probably one of the strangest books I've read (being that I havent read any other Vonnegut than this and that I dont read all that much anyways..) All of Vonnegut is odd-ball, but that's what's great about his work! This is my pick - it's fiction, but based on may facts surrounding the Texas Independence: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badboybass Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 Originally posted by D Aussie Nausea, Jean Paul Satr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sunburstbasser Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 Not related to what your interested in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BigPigPeaches Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 Originally posted by lug The Guns of the South Toward the end of the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee knows he needs a miracle if the Confederacy is to survive. A miracle appears, in the person of an oddly dressed stranger with a new, devastating infantry weapon which the stranger calls an 'AK-47'. Armed with full-auto firepower against blackpowder rifled muskets, the Confederates take Washington and enforce their secession from the Union. However, General Lee suspects that the gift of the AK-47 may come with a sinister price for the new nation he loves so dearly... I read this one...pretty good mind candy. Harry Turtledove does a pretty good alternative history in general. If you haven't read "Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, that's an excellent book. Then there's always this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nicebigstrings Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 Recent great reads - 'Sweet Soul Music' - Peter Guralnik'Paris 1919' - Margaret MacMillan'A Short History of Progress' - Ronald Wright'The First World War' - John Keegan old faves - 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' - T.E. Lawrence'Crime and Punishment' - Dostoyevsky'The March of Folly' - Barbara Tuchman'Don Quixote' - Miguel Cervantes'Obras Completas' (The Complete Works) - Federico Garcia Lorca Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flatcat Posted May 19, 2005 Members Share Posted May 19, 2005 I'll definitely second the Keegan history of World War I, that's an excellent book. Boy, lots of good suggestions. On the Holocaust and the Nazi era, there's an interesting book by Ron Rosenbaum called Explaining Hitler that discusses some of the current scholarship on that era. I read that after visiting the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington. Anything by James Morrow is worth reading. I thought City of Truth was great; my brother loved Towing Jehovah and the other books in that series (the other two were Blameless In Abbadon and The Eternal Footman, I think) - I haven't read that trilogy, but it's on my list. And you can't ever go wrong with the classics. I'm partial to Dickens myself, lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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