In The Garden Of Beasts- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson. Just started it but it seems really good so far.

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C Gwynne--about Quanah Parker and the Comanche Indians

Just finished "The Napoleonic Wars: an illustrated history 1792-1815" by Michael Glover. It's the first book I've read on this subject. Pretty well done but again was frustrated by the numerous usages of French phrases and sentences with no translation or explanation. Yes, I realize I could use an online translation tool to decode them but it's annoying to have those pop up every few minutes and I just don't want to have to do the extra work. First published in 1979 so there could not have been an assumption of readily available translations.

Any recommendations for books about the Norman Conquest? Supposedly an ancestor was involved. Not a clear line for sure, but I thought would be interesting reading.

I agree with an earlier poster that HW Brands has gotten lazy. I've read just about all his books but the ones he's put out in the last several years have been poorly researched with no new material. He uses quotes way too much. I think he's just writing "money grabs" at this point. His early stuff was great. The First American was one of my favorites.

The ******* Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean

Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick

Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Colonel Roosevelt for the Defense by Dan Abrams

Texas Aggies in Vietnam Michael Lee Lanning

Currently reading 12 Texas Aggie Heroes by James R Woodall and also Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

chick79 said:

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I agree with an earlier poster that HW Brands has gotten lazy. I've read just about all his books but the ones he's put out in the last several years have been poorly researched with no new material. He uses quotes way too much. I think he's just writing "money grabs" at this point. His early stuff was great. The First American was one of my favorites.

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Yep, The First American was really good but his newest stuff is abysmal except for The Zealot and the Emancipator.

Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Leerhsen. Highly recommend if you are a baseball fan. Changed my impression of who Ty Cobb was. His main previous biographer was at minimum a lazy sensationalist or perhaps more likely a complete fraud. Makes you question who is vetting biographies and controlling history.

Not that Cobb was a saint or anything, but the book does show a large contrast from the way that Cobb is portrayed in the Baseball documentary by Ken Burns and even the scene in Field of Dreams.

Also recently read Report from #24 by Gunner Sonsteby. He was a key player in the Norweigian Resistance movement in Olso and beyond. Good and pretty short read. Sonsetby was awarded the War Cross with three swords, the only person to have received that.

Stump was commissioned by Cobb to write his biography and between the two of them, it's impossible to know what Cobb actually said or believed and what was added by Stump. It's a very weird case. Cobb was absolutely an *******, but it seems he wanted to be seen as an even bigger ******* than he actually was.

Two recommended by WS Journal - Rommell dull too detailed.

Panzer Commander -same!

Several by Wodehouse mainly about Jeeves the butler - all funny!

Sapper Redux said:

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Stump was commissioned by Cobb to write his biography and between the two of them, it's impossible to know what Cobb actually said or believed and what was added by Stump. It's a very weird case. Cobb was absolutely an *******, but it seems he wanted to be seen as an even bigger ******* than he actually was.

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Cobb tried to get changes made but he passed away. He demanded Stump be fired. At least according to this new Bio, Stump forged up to 100 letters that he wrote and claimed to be Cobbs. Stump also had been banned by recommendation of the research departments of other publications. He claimed to have spent 10 months with Cobb before the book came out when it seems more likely to have been a few days.

Cobb definitely had a major temper, but it seems like Stump made him a caricature and everyone else fell in line with it.

Wade Hampton's Iron Scouts

terata said:

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Wade Hampton's Iron Scouts

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About------?

Wade Hampton's Cavalry Scouts. They spent their time behind Union lines and effectively provided critical intel to Hampton, Lee, et.al.

Just finished Dereliction of Duty by H R McMaster

Completed "The Last Lion" recently and thrilled with it. I've read many, but love his autobiography the best. What a unique, brilliant individual, but was thrown out like yesterday's news. Always makes me sad and angry.

If you must be rude - there's a football forum I will recommend. It's called The Zoo.

I'm not being rude. It's true.

terata said:

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Wade Hampton's Cavalry Scouts. They spent their time behind Union lines and effectively provided critical intel to Hampton, Lee, et.al.

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Thanks, terata- looks interesting!

AgRyan04 said:

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Finished Empire of the Summer Moon by SC Gwynne from recommendations on here. Excellent book!

I think it's going to force my hand to re-read the Lonesome Dove series

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Read J. Events Haley's biography of Charles Goodnight before you go to "Lonesome Dove". Goodnight was the real Captain Call.

Thanks! Putting it on my list!

metrag06 said:

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If you like Isaac's Storm you should read A Weekend in September by John Edward Weems. It was written in the early 1950s and is a minute by minute account of the storm including interviews with many people who had been children or young adults during the hurricane and were still alive at the time.

He has another book The Tornado which is based on the 1953 Waco tornado. It is woefully wrong on some of the science of tornadoes (it was written in the early 1970s) but the personal accounts of the event are very interesting. Both books are published by the Texas A&M University Press.

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I had read the other poster's recommendation (and it is a good book) and was about to suggest for those interested in the 1900 storm that they should read the Weems book, but you beat me to it. And yes, the one thing Weems had that so many later writers did not have were interviews with so many who lived through the hurricane. I used to go to Galveson every summer for 3 or 4 days to get some CPE hours and would take the map in the front of his book and go to the location of the homes or businesses of several of those people who were interviewed by Weems.

I have read many books on the 1900 storm, including one published only a few months after it hit Galveston. I think the Weems book is the best of all of them.

Thanks for the heads up on Weems' other book.

VanZandt92 said:

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Just ignore my above posts if you aren't into 18th century history guys. I get a little carried away.

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Never too carried away for me. But I know what you mean - my 30 year old kids eyes start to glaze over if someone accidentally mentions the Revolutionary War and I start imparting knowledge I think they should know!

OldArmy71 said:

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That is some neat family history.

Another book we read in my high school junior AP English class was "A Woman of the People," a novel loosely based on the Cynthia Ann Parker captivity. It was the least literary of anything we read, but the kids always loved it.

It's about 19th century captivities in Texas rather than the 18th century, but "The Captured" by Scott Zesch is excellent.

The whole captivity thing has always been very sad to me. To be ripped away from your comfort and family (Mary Rowlandson turns her experience into a Puritan sermon) and then, after years perhaps in which you have married into the tribe, you are again ripped away from all you know.

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The Unredeemed Captive is an excellent work exploring those themes.

i did go ahead and re-read Lonesome Dove - but I also picked up Goodnight which I'm excited to read.

I'm listening to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown right now in the truck and reading both The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier and Taming Texas Dust Storms: The Memoirs of Dale D. Allen. The former is a pretty good history of the Big Bend region of the state and the latter is an interesting read on farmland conservation (by an Ag)

The Day After Roswell

by Col Phillip J. Corso

Looking for a good read on the history of Mexico up through World War 2. Tia.

My 2023 list

Doctrine of God by John M Frame
Common Sense and Other Writings by Thomas Paine
Mere Christianity (and others) by C.S. Lewis
12 Rules for Life by Peterson
Conquering Tide by Ian Toll
Justification by Faith Alone by Jonathan Edwards

Fehrenbach's Fire and Blood.

Will order it, thanks.

Big Bend of the Rio Grande

The Battle for Spain.

Isaac's Storm by Larson. About the 1900 Galveston hurricane