AgRyan04 said:

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I just finished Stalingrad by Beevor and then flew through The Winter Fortress by Bascomb, which was outstanding. It is the story of Norweigian underground sabotage of German production of heavy water, which they were using in the race to the atomic bomb.

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A couple of other books on the sabotage of the Heavy Water plant are Skis against the Atom by Knut Haukelid who was one of the participants in the Norweigian team and Heros of Telemark by Mears. Of those two I would start with Skis against the Atom

Just finished Countdown 1945 by Chris Wallace (yes, that Chris Wallace).

The story starts on April 12, 1945, the day that FDR died, and counts down days until the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki. The main characters include Robert Oppenheimer, Gen. Leslie Groves, Paul Tibbets, and President Harry Truman. The only Texan briefly mentioned is Joseph Stiborik (side note: I found a website that mentioned that Stiborik attended Texas A&M, https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/joseph-s-stiborik , but the AFS website does not list Stiborik as a former student.) Amazing to me that despite the immense size and effort of the Manhatten Project, Truman was in the dark and unaware that the bomb was being developed until after FDR died.

Does anyone have any book recommendations on the history of the Texas rangers? (Not the baseball team!)

Bossenecker's Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde
David Smith's Frontier Defense in the Civil War: Texas' Rangers and Rebels for the Civil War era
Oldie but still goldie Webb's The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense

There are two new histories that just came out whose authors will tell you Webb whitewashed (literally) the Rangers. Their books dig up and emphasize the dirt and racism of the Rangers but I won't mention those two books. You can find them if you want they were published in 2018 and 2020.

The Real Odessa:How Peron Brought Nazi War Criminals to Argentina-Uki Gona, *****

Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery and the Transformation of Texas Borderlands 1800-1850- Andrew Torget, *****

Rudder:From Leader to Legend- Thomas Hatfield, *****

The Path between the Seas, The Creation of the Panama Cana 1870-1914- David McCullough, *****

Life of a Klansman-Edward Ball, *****

I am halfway through "Shattered Sword" right now. Great book and very detailed on the IJN side of the battle. I understand that poster Titan was a co-author of the book. Is there a book with this level of detail from the USN/USMC side of the battle. I honestly have not read a book about Midway since middle school. I would love to find one in this same vein from the American perspective.

Emerson - The Mind on Fire by Richardson - I didn't know a whole lot about Ralph Waldo Emerson before this book. I found the book to be very interesting and detailed. It also references a huge number of other books that Emerson mentioned reading in his journals or gave reviews of. Many of these are free on the Google book app at least. Not only was it a long read itself, it added dozens of titles to my list of books to look at. It also put me on to reading more into several religious subjects I hadn't previously known much about. I would certainly recommend.

dcbowers said:

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Just finished Countdown 1945 by Chris Wallace (yes, that Chris Wallace).

The story starts on April 12, 1945, the day that FDR died, and counts down days until the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki. The main characters include Robert Oppenheimer, Gen. Leslie Groves, Paul Tibbets, and President Harry Truman. The only Texan briefly mentioned is Joseph Stiborik (side note: I found a website that mentioned that Stiborik attended Texas A&M, https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/joseph-s-stiborik , but the AFS website does not list Stiborik as a former student.) Amazing to me that despite the immense size and effort of the Manhatten Project, Truman was in the dark and unaware that the bomb was being developed until after FDR died.

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From the Battalion: August 9, 1945:

Finally reading Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Interesting subject. Only about 80 or so pages in. What have others thought about this Pulitzer Prize winning non-fiction book?

Guns, Germs, and Steel is probably in my Mount Rushmore, if I had to make one. It addresses basic questions that I think most of us take for granted (I did at least). It keeps asking "why" past a point where most of us would throw up our hands and say "that's how things are." I would also suggest Collapse. It doesn't really hold a candle to Guns, Germs, and Steel but it's still a good read and covers Diamond's take on why societies fail.

Just finished a good read The Gray Seas Under by Mowat. My Dad picked it up in the 60's in Newfoundland. About the salvage operations off NE Canada particularly during the German U-boat operations.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown. Great book about depression era kids who went as a rowing team to the 1936 Olympics.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

1. The Panic of 1857 and the Coming of the Civil War- Huston ****
2. The Hunt for History- On the trail of lost treasures-Raab ***
3. The Vapors: A Southern Family, The New York Mob and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capitol of Vice- Hill****
4. Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America-McDaniel*****
5. God's Banker: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican-Posner*****
6. The Man who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker-Baker etc always *****
Those of you that have an interest in running for office might want to read this one. Great insight to the political arena. Hundreds of pols cross the pages and you get an interesting view of them. #41 always fought the "wimp" factor and for a reason. He was one. Baker should have been the tennis partner in the White House not GHWB. The children of people that got to DC are sacrificed....no other way to say it. Good read.

Currently reading The Soong Dynasty. Chronicles particularly the Soong family, Madame Chaing Kai-shek. Of course talks about the development of the Kuomintang and the gangster corruption in the process. However it wants me to read more about Stillwell and Chennault. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

The Catcher Was a Spy
The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

Maybe the smartest MLB player ever, Moe Berg was a perennial backup catcher, lawyer, polyglot, and ultimately master spy.

Spore Ag, Barbara Tuchman's Stilwell and the American Experience in China is very good and won the Pulitzer prize.

I really liked The Flying Tigers by Sam Kleiner.

Thanks, I forgot about Tuchman book. Loved her Guns of August.

" The Booksellers " prime Video about 2 hours.

One of the best documentaries I have seen ! Mostly about rare booksellers in New York City

and book collecting . Great photos of their stores .

Highly recommend !

Jefferson's War: Americas First War on Terror, 1801-1805

Pretty solid from what I can tell so far and very interesting.

Finished "Days of Rage" recently. If you think America has societal/race/political problems now you really need to look into what happened in the 60's and 70's. Wow.

JABQ04 said:

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Just started Ian Tolls set on the War in the Pacific

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Just finished the first volume. Really messed up! I haven't gotten the second volume yet. Now I have to wait until it gets here!

The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis

This woman was much more than a tired seamstress refusing to give up her seat.

I Read you Paint Houses- Brandt. The story of the killing of Hoffa. Pretty interesting. ****

The Ice at the End of the World, Greenland's Buried Past... Gertner ***** Dad was stationed in Greenland during WW2 so always had an interest.

Dead Wake, the Last Crossing of the Lusitania-Larson ***** anything by Larson is good.

Revolver:Sam Colt and the Six Shooter that Changed America- Rosenberger. The story is good but the background that the author includes is almost a book unto itself. *****

I just finished "Thunder Below!: The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II", by Admiral Eugene "Lucky" Fluckey. Awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature in 1993, I found a used copy of the book through Alibris.

Only 30 years old, Fluckey lived a life of exceptional adventure and bravado, and this book is a diary of his final five patrols leading the submarine USS Barb. Though never explicitly stated, Fluckey was a true believer in Bull Halsey's motto of "Kill Japs, Kill Japs, and Kill More Japs." Never much for self-reflection or doubt, Fluckey backed his men completely, and was in turn, loved by his crew. Fluckey sometimes violated Navy regulations by stashing cases of beer in the officers' shower. Whenever the Barb sank a ship, everyone on board was entitled to a cold beer ("Splice the Main Brace!), which endeared him to his crew. In addition to the Medal of Honor and Navy Crosses, Admiral Fluckey received the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, and many other decorations. His greatest achievement, he often said, was that no one under his command ever received another well-known medal: the Purple Heart.

Morning Star, Midnight Sun - The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War II AugustOctober 1942. By Jeffery Cox

An extremely good read about Operation Watchtower.

Full of descriptions of all air, sea and land battles on over and around the island. Highly recommend.

I figured out how to get audiobooks from my local library so I've listened a couple....emphasis on "listened to" because it drives me crazy when someone says they "read" an audiobook.

I finished They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer....pretty interesting....the author basically went and lived for a year or so a small German town about a decade after the war and spent a lot of time talking to ten Germans to get a sense of how they felt/feel during the war and in the years after.

Right now I am about halfway through Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn which is a pretty great book on Bonnie and Clyde.

I terms of actual reading....I'm about half way through Franklin & Winston by Jon Meachum....its a good account of their relationship leading up to and during the war.

I'm also reading Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory by Michael Korda. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it and it's pretty good. I have a fairly vague knowledge of the lead up to Dunkirk and this is filling in a lot of gaps without being too terribly heavy/textbookish.

Donald Miller's Vicksburg. Nothing earthshattering perhaps a different view of Porter (very conniving) and Farragut (a little more nervous than "Damn the Torpedoes"), than I'm used to, but very good writing. Very similar in vein to Grant Moves South by Catton but not quite that good.

41 A Portrait of my Father - by George W. Bush

The Social Contract - by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

With school starting soon, probably a lot more.

Just picked up "The Five Families" by Selwyn Raab about the Mafia.

Anyone read it or into the history of the Mafia?

Over Christmas vacation, I read two books:

"City on Fire: The Explosion that Devastated a Texas Town and Ignited a Historic Legal Battle" by Bill Minutaglio. I had heard whispers of the April 16, 1947 Texas City Disaster as a kid, but didn't know much about it and this piqued my interest. Also, I had read another of Minutaglio's books, Dallas 1963, a couple of years ago. Similar to Dallas 1963, this was a sensationalistic yet simplistic story of a mid-century Texas tragedy. The rather two-dimensional characters (Curtis Trahan and Father William Roach are always good; Mike Mikeska and the Company men are always bad) and convenient absence of key facts (why didn't Texas City municipality or any of the petrochemical plants have a disaster plan in place?) left me shaking my head. Midway through the story, the narrative switches to the post-explosion legal battle, and my interest waned.

"Unsinkable: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of the USS Plunkett" by James Sullivan. The book focuses on five men: John Gallagher, Jack Simpson, Ken Brown, Ed Burke, and Jim Feltz, who served in the Mediterranean theater (North Africa, Sicily, and Anzio) of WW2 on the destroyer USS Plunkett. In many ways, this book reminded me of the exceptional bravery of the officers and enlisted men found in James Horfischer's "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" (and if you liked it, then you will no doubt like this book, too). Sullivan clearly loves the men who served on the Plunkett and was able to interview many of them before they passed. Really enjoyed it.

History of African Safari and hunting