The dog days of summer are upon us, and I'm curious what everyone is reading this summer? Any good finds at the bookstore?

I started a new one last week, which is a biography of Aaron Burr called "Fallen Founder". Amazing life of a man who served as VP under Jefferson, dueled with and killed Alexander Hamilton, and was later tried for treason.

So, what's on your reading list?

I have two new World War II books to read. I have RETRIBUTION, which is British author Max Hastings' study of the collapse of the Japanese empire at the end of the war. This book follows his excellent book ARMAGEDDON, which is a study of the same time period in Nazi Germany. The other book that I just bought is THE GREATEST BATTLE, about the Battle of Moscow between the German Army and the Russian Army, between the Fall of 1941 and the Spring of 1942, in which armies totaling 7 million men fought for the Russian Capital. The totals between prisoners and casualties were 2.5 million men, not including civilian casualties. The book is written by Andrew Nagorski, who is a senior editor for Newsweek International. I just finished reading another British author's book INFERNO, an extensive study of the destruction of Hamburg, Germany by incendiary firebombing at the hands of the British Air Force in late July of 1943, where civilian casualties where very heavy, especially in the northeast inner-city residential areas of the city. Keith Lowe is the author of INFERNO.

Still trying to become a World War II and 20th Century naval historian, but I am branching out into other facets of the war. Have to know the past to understand the present and the future.

Mark

I read a summary of Andrew Nagorski's Novel in WWII magazine last summer. It was an EXCELLENT article. I emailed him in appreciation and he wrote back. The Germans came within an ace of winning that battle. It's too bad we got involved in that war, we should have let the two of them annihilate each other. It certainly was a clash of titans, in every sense of that phrase.

I've not read anything this summer so far, is that bad? Lol.

The CompTIA Convergence+ study guide. I personally think all previous examples in this thread are much more interesting.

I just finished reading a novel by Garth Stein called "How Evan Broke His Head and Other Sercrets." It's about a man with epilepsy, but has a lot of parallels to CSA issues.
Now I'm rereading "Brideshead Revisited" before I see the movie. Brideshead is great. If you've never read it, it's worth taking a look.
Peace.

Riveting!!!!!!

This summer I am mainly working on the last outstanding chapter of Ken's book, a chapter on the mind and how it works, so very interesting and challenging for me. (There's an opening for comments if ever there was one!)

I'm also doing an Arabic to English translation of a book written by an Iraqi professor who's a close friend of mine. He's 95 years old and an exile in Jordan, and the book is about problems in the study of the origins of Islam. I'm also finishing the first book I have ever written in German! Not a huge thing, but I'm very proud of it.

Hmmmmm. Looks like I need to lighten up. Never mind...I do that with Judge Judy and CSI.

Much love,
Larry

THE GREATEST BATTLE is not a novel, just judging by the length of the resource, quote, and interview list, at almost 30 pages. Some may argue this, but I think that it was better in the long run that we retained control of West Germany as an additional buffer. It is certain that the Russian Army would have annihilated every German soldier if we had let them, at far less cost to us initially in terms of lives altered and lost. And where would the eastern European nations be if greater Russia went all the way to the Rhine River valley? I am guessing that their lot wouldn't be nearly as optimistic as it is today, and maybe ours either.

Mark

You're assuming that WWII would have started without the Britsh giving Poland a Carte Blanche guarantee that they would go to war with Germany if the former had forcefully taken back the Danzig Corridor. But I'm going wayyyy back for the purposes of this discussion, then again, history didn't start on June 21, 1941, either.

My point being that Hitler never would have invaded Russia as soon as he had were he not already at war. Lol........ENOUGH HISTORY!

I am starting at the back end and working my way forward with Nazi Germany. I just ordered a book about our invasion of Saipan too. I also have a Wellspring Media prodution called GHOSTS OF THE BALTIC SEA, a DVD about 3 of the 4 worst Konigsberg refugee ship disasters. The 4th, the Maya, was sunk by British Typhoon fighters just a short distance from her pier at her destination, with over 5000 deaths.

That is how the Great War started. A minor event and a bunch of mutual aid treaties. Didn't Germany invade Poload in 1939? Was their invasion of Czechoslovakia before or after their invasion of Poland? I believe that one of Hitler's goals in Russia was the oil fields around Baku, to the west of the Caspian Sea.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Mark