What's new

The book I am reading

Read this the other day. A great account of a raid by members of 2 SAS to rescue inmates from a concentration camp not far from Taranto in Southern Italy. A train was used to take members of the Regiment to the camp and bring inmates back. As the SAS had no members who could drive a train a soldier from the Royal Engineers was temporarily attached to the Regiment. The book also has accounts of SAS missions in Italy. When you read accounts of what the SAS did in North Africa and Europe in WW2 you realise that there is no need to watch the drama, SAS: Rogue Heroes. I watched about half of the first episode of series one and had to switch it off as it was so bad.

81ac3tn0riL._SL1500_.jpg


 
This was an excellent read about Jean de Selys one of many Belgians who served with the RAF in WW2. He flew Hurricanes, Spitfires and Typhoons. Spent some of his service with 609 and was based at a number of bases including Manston and the World's most famous fighter station, Biggin Hill. Sadly died in 1943 when the Typhoon he was flying in crashed after returning from a mission. He was buried with full military honours. His most famous mission was a solo attack on tower block in Brussels. The tower had been commanded by the Germans as a place for carrying out interrogations of opponents.

apple-touch-icon-114x114.png
Pen and Sword Books
53447.jpg
The Belgian RAF Pilot Who Defied the GestapoIn a breathtaking moment lasting less than ten seconds, skimming the rooftops of Brussels, Jean de Selys Longchamps would etch his name into the annals…

 
Now reading this. Violette was one of three female members of the Special Operations Executive awarded the George Cross. The George Cross was awarded posthumously and given the Violette's daughter Tania who is the author of the book.

81ceuPV4PDL._SL1500_.jpg


 
image.png

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down.

Picked this up recently.

Hard Back Edition from 1982.

Chronicles the drama of Operation Jericho, the 18th February 1944 air raid, that freed more than seven hundred prisoners held in Amiens, France, in the greatest mass prison escape in history. Many of the details regarding this raid were never released.

 
image.png

Paperback Edition from 2010.

One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort.

His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and suave, courageous and unpredictable, Chapman was by turns a traitor, a hero, a villain and a man of conscience.

But, as his spymasters and many lovers often wondered, who was the real Eddie Chapman?

Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create an exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent.

 
View attachment 40182

Paperback Edition from 2010.

One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort.

His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and suave, courageous and unpredictable, Chapman was by turns a traitor, a hero, a villain and a man of conscience.

But, as his spymasters and many lovers often wondered, who was the real Eddie Chapman?

Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create an exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent.
Click to expand...
An excellent book. Read it a few years ago.

 
image.png

Paperwork Edition from 2016.

What is it like to be swept along at 60kmh in the middle of the pack? What happens to the body during a high-speed chute? What tactics must teams employ to win the day, the jersey, the grand tour? What sacrifices must a cyclist make to reach the highest levels? What is it like on the bus? In the hotels? What camaraderie is built in the confines of a team? What rivalries? How does it feel to be constantly on the road, away from loved ones, tasting one more calorie-counted hotel breakfast?

David Millar offers us a unique insight into the mind of a professional cyclist during his last year before retirement. Over the course of a season on the World Tour, Millar puts us in touch with the sights, smells and sounds of the sport. This is a book about youth and age, fresh-faced excitement and hard-earned experience. It is a love letter to cycling.

 
image.png

Spitfire Ace.Gordon Olive DFC

From 2016

Pitched into the maelstrom of air fighting in the summer of 1940, twenty-four-year-old Gordon Olive barely lived to tell this extraordinary tale of courage and endurance.

As Britain fought alone for its survival, the Few of RAF Fighter Command took to the air grievously outnumbered, many reaching breaking point, exhausted physically and mentally by unreleting, intense combat.

Gordon Olive flew the iconic Spitfire for over 125 missions above London and the south-east in the white heat of the aerial battle for supremacy of the skies.

One of the most heavily engaged pilots of the Battle, he shot down ten enemy aircraft.

This is his story of what it was like to dogfight with Messerschmitts at speeds of 400 mph, experiencing G forces close to blackout, at one moment drenched in sweat and the next freezing at 25,000 feet.

To smell the cordite of your own fighter s machine guns and feel cannon shells explode against the back of your armoured seat.Illustrated in colour with forty unique paintings by the author of the aerial battle in the now legendary summer of 1940.

 
Gordon Olive had written notes for a book about his wartime service, but sadly he did not finish it.

Several years after his death in October 1987,his estate arranged for writer Dennis Newton to edit these notes into a book, which was published in 2015 under the title Spitfire Ace.

 
touch-icon-36.413a37b227.png
BBC News
86cef5e0-5770-11f1-907e-c389fdeeba6e.jpg
Are hardback books things of 'great beauty' or a dying art?Readers, publishers, shops and libraries share their thoughts on the hardback's future.
I've bought and read hundreds, if not thousands, of books over the years and have to admit that the ones I have bought and those I've borrowed from libraries take up a lot of space in my house. Shelves are starting to bow! I inherited a love of books from my father and he and his father were prolific readers. I love the look and feel of books, something you don't experience and enjoy with e-books. I've read a few e-books and though the story or account is the same as in a paperback or hardback it didn't feel right. I worked in a U.K. Government's IT Department and my colleagues knew that I loved books and they asked why, if I worked in IT, I didn't have a kindle. My response was that it's because I work in IT that I didn't have a kindle. It was good to have a break from IT.

With a paper or hardback you don't have to worry about charging a kindle, Just need a bookmark. I've had to replace a couple of paperbacks over the years. One of which was Stephen King's The Stand. I read my original copy so many times it was starting to fall apart so I had to buy a replacement. I've also have several first editions of books which were signed by the author. I have a book about the Mosquito aeroplane which wasn't signed by the author but was signed by four RAF personnel who flew in that wonderful aeroplane in WW2. One of my prized possessions.

Books are beautiful!

 
Goodness knows how many books I’ve bought!

Not to mention the hundreds of magazines and then there’s the ‘old music papers’ such as Melody Maker and NME

I’ll often buy doubles of books that I like, from say a charity shop. If we’re going away on holiday I’ll take the ‘double’, read it again and then often I pass it back to the charity shop.

 
Goodness knows how many books I’ve bought!

Not to mention the hundreds of magazines and then there’s the ‘old music papers’ such as Melody Maker and NME

I’ll often buy doubles of books that I like, from say a charity shop. If we’re going away on holiday I’ll take the ‘double’, read it again and then often I pass it back to the charity shop.
Click to expand...
I've bought hundreds of magazines as well. Mostly motorsport and history but also copies of Private Eye. Also magazines issued by the many societies I belong to.

Charity shops are great places to find books especially those which are no longer in print.

 
touch-icon-36.413a37b227.png
BBC News
86cef5e0-5770-11f1-907e-c389fdeeba6e.jpg
Are hardback books things of 'great beauty' or a dying art?Readers, publishers, shops and libraries share their thoughts on the hardback's future.
I've bought and read hundreds, if not thousands, of books over the years and have to admit that the ones I have bought and those I've borrowed from libraries take up a lot of space in my house. Shelves are starting to bow! I inherited a love of books from my father and he and his father were prolific readers. I love the look and feel of books, something you don't experience and enjoy with e-books. I've read a few e-books and though the story or account is the same as in a paperback or hardback it didn't feel right. I worked in a U.K. Government's IT Department and my colleagues knew that I loved books and they asked why, if I worked in IT, I didn't have a kindle. My response was that it's because I work in IT that I didn't have a kindle. It was good to have a break from IT.

With a paper or hardback you don't have to worry about charging a kindle, Just need a bookmark. I've had to replace a couple of paperbacks over the years. One of which was Stephen King's The Stand. I read my original copy so many times it was starting to fall apart so I had to buy a replacement. I've also have several first editions of books which were signed by the author. I have a book about the Mosquito aeroplane which wasn't signed by the author but was signed by four RAF personnel who flew in that wonderful aeroplane in WW2. One of my prized possessions.

Books are beautiful!
Click to expand...
I like books too and through moving have sold a few and lost a few with moves.

I still have Stephen King's the Stand and have read it 2 or 3 times, a bit dog-eared yet passable.

As I get older I dislike household chores so look for book cabinets yet room prevents having too many.

 
Put it off for a while but have finally hit a lull in what I had available so going to get into Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, always see it being highly recommended by most of Goodreads/YouTube

 
Put it off for a while but have finally hit a lull in what I had available so going to get into Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, always see it being highly recommended by most of Goodreads/YouTube
Click to expand...
Read it about 10 years ago. Mr McCarthy at possibly his most perverse. As a McCarthy fan, consider that a compliment.

 
image.png

Just started reading (again!😀)

That Close by Suggs.

Paperback Edition from 2013.

Suggs is one of pop music's most enduring and likeable figures.

Written with the assured style and wit of a natural raconteur, this hugely entertaining and insightful autobiography takes you from his colourful early life on a North London council estate, through the heady early days of Punk and 2-Tone, to the eighties, where Madness became the biggest selling singles band of the decade.

Along the way he tells you what it's like to grow up in sixties Soho, go globetrotting with your best mates, to make a dead pigeon fly and cause an earthquake in Finsbury Park.

 
Put it off for a while but have finally hit a lull in what I had available so going to get into Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, always see it being highly recommended by most of Goodreads/YouTube
Click to expand...
Blood Meridian is worth persevering with despite the lack of humanity and punctuation. One of the most brilliant and appalling books I have ever read.

Even the effetes at the Guardian named it as one of their 100 best novels ever. (Amusingly they describe it as a 'coming-of-age story').

I recently re-read Suttree, which is much more low-stakes (at no point are you led to speculate 'oh wait is this guy the devil?') and also quite funny. Plus oddly relatable for somebody who spent much of his twenties drinking with low-lives.

A girl at work who fancies me recently gave me a first edition first print copy of All the Pretty Horses. A very thoughtful gift.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top