What’s on your bookshelf? (Share your recommended reading!)

[Day-Tripper]

I just finished re-reading "The Fall of Berlin" by Antony Beevor. Impossibly great. Convinced me that the era of tanks may have begun to come to an end when 12-year Hitler Youths & 50 year old Volksturm militia, with virtually no training, firing cheaply made Panzerfusts were able to destroy hundreds, maybe thousands, of Soviet T-34s and Stalin tanks in the war's last few weeks.

I am now re-reading "D-Day - June 6, 1944" by Stephen Ambrose. Fine book also. Convinced me that the era of parachute troops was a very brief one, really from 1940-1944. The Germans gave up on airbourne paratroop actions after Crete in 1941. The US & UK largely gave up on airbourne paratroop actions after Normany & Arnhem operations in 1944. Nobody has really used them in a big role since. However, US, UK & Russia (and maybe others) still train elite troops in parachute training to this day, though they'll likely never be deployed this way in combat ever again.

 

[JohnMcLane]

I've been rereading One Bullet Away lately. It's the only book I can think of I that I just could not put it down when I first read it.

I second this. My kid is reading this now in prep for beginning NROTC MO option.

 

[AN21]

I second this. My kid is reading this now in prep for beginning NROTC MO option.

That's a solid plan. There's so many useful tidbits of advice in it.

 

[raimius]

This Kind and of War and Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors are both excellent.

 

[Lucy]

Has anyone read The Mosquito Bowl? Was thinking to get it for someone as a gift

 

[Kierkegaard]

Thanks for the suggestions! I did a lot of reading during my brief hiatus from this forum 😉. Most recently: The Psychology of Military Incompetence. It’s interesting how some of the major military blunders throughout history have common themes.

 

[StPaulDad]

Based on suggestions from this site I recently read Gates of Fire and Red Notice by Bill Browder. I'm a big baseball guy and a big Joe Posnanski fan so I'm re-reading his Baseball 100 from last year while waiting for his new one, Why We Love Baseball. (If you don't read Joe you should, because he's far more than a sports columnist. His piece called Katie The Prefect is one of the finest essays I've seen in years. He's got a bunch of old popular stuff in his Throwback page. ) Anyway, I also picked up a couple used books recently that I'm slowly starting to hack away at, but the tower of unread books in my room is more a testament to civil engineering than literature.

 

[Day-Tripper]

Has anyone read The Mosquito Bowl? Was thinking to get it for someone as a gift

I just got it over Christmas. Tremendous read. Highly recommended. You don't need much prior knowledge of WW2 or the military before reading. Very sad though.

 

[Gaffer]

The Perfect Storm
Johnny Got His Gun
Catch-22
Henry V ( the Shakespeare play)

 

[LST271]

"Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal" by James Hornfischer.

 

[Cville24]

I've been rereading One Bullet Away lately. It's the only book I can think of I that I just could not put it down when I first read it.

That, Black Hawk Down, and (mentioned earlier in the thread) Can't Hurt Me were just impossible for me to put down.

 

[payne_max]

Cronin's The Citadel
Heat 2: A Novel by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner

 

[Ddm66]

Washington: A lLife , by Ron Chernow.

The Book Thief. By Markus Zusak.