So, watcha' reading?

[Phantom Stranger]

'Vampire Siege At Rio Muerto'
by
John M. Whalen


Damn good book .

[Scatter]

A hilarious compilation of horror-related strips from the clever
writers and cartoonists of Mad Magazine...

Oh, I NEED this!!

Just finished "Peg Entwistle And The Hollywood Sign Suicide". Good read!

[MONSTERMOSH]

THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES

[Street Worm]

  The Dunwich Romance - Edward Lee

[long live kong]

'The Dunwich Romance' looks intriguing! Today I bought a copy of 'Weird Shadows over Innsmouth', and will start it tonight!

[Halloween Jeff]

Rod Serling's Night Gallery:  An After Hours Tour.

[Howler]

finally started reading this a couple weeks ago while serving for jury duty.

[Phantom Stranger]

Currently re-reading

'Hell House'
by
Richard Matheson

It's been over thirty years since I last read this book. It still holds up as one of the best ghost stories ever. A classic.

[Elisabeth]

BOY SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT WAR by Richard Van Emden.  A story of the pluck, and brave innocence of children who wanted to "Do Their Bit".

The Author visited all the boys who survived, and recorded oral histories.  He also visited families of those who had passed.
I highly recommend this book, as we approach the Centennial of The Great  War, later this summer.

"E"

[Flower]

I'm waiting for the new Virgil Flowers to arrive



I miss Ruth Rendell, especially her Inspector Wexford series.

I wish that Martha Grimes would write more Richard Jury books.

I wait impatiently every July for the newest Daniel Silva.

Martin Cruz Smith is writing a new Renko novel.  YAY.

I used to follow around a dozen or more authors, waiting patiently or impatiently for their latest books.  Too many have died such as

P.D. James
Mary Stewart
Robert B. Parker .. the series written by other authors don't have the flair.  Now I need some donuts.

Just 'thinking' out loud. 

[Memphremagog]

Current reads:

[ChristineBCW]

THE GERMAN GENERAL TALK, b y Liddell Hart.  Hart enjoyed a publicly favorable reputation as a British Army officer, 'insider', historian and journalist, although Winston Churchill's view of him was considerably, uh, "less positive" although Churchill offered plentiful reasons for all positive and negatives toward Hart.

In this book, Hart is given access to interview the German generals upon their capture in the West.

This book rotates between several interviewees and catalogs them by date-and-subject - the early years into the later years.  Many interviewees were not honest and Hart occasionally points this out, but seldom does he call them on it.  This means the book is full of lies and misleading statements, only later annotated by Hart The Editor, not corrected at the time by Hart the Interviwer/Interrogator.

It makes for a less than useful 'historical' document, therefore.  And while I've read several less than flattering remarks about Hart and his reputation, this book is a good indicator of what his reputation may have fallen to. 

The sad part is that I didn't read this book to discover anything about the author, but about "German generals when they talk".  They talk aplenty, but since it's not truthful so often, I give this book a pretty low rating for "ways to spend time reading in search of historical facts".

[ChristineBCW]

THE GERMAN GENERALS...

[ChristineBCW]

Next, the far more excellent Keith Lowe's INFERNO (Destruction of Hamburg, 1943). 

One generic complaint about histories is the lack of useful maps.  INFERNO is a notable exception to this, and especially since the 3 bombing raids are covered in separate chapters with their own Approach map, Actual Bombing vs Targeted map, and the Depart map. 

But the outstanding discussion is the Allied air force leadership's mystifying idiocy about how Europe 'traveled'.  Bombing road intersections or junction-point cities was fairly worthless.  Bombing railroads - not just the marshalling yards - was the Real Deal, and this wasn't done until late in the war.  Germany was always able to use rubble to rebuild roadways and allow civilians to huddle under for shelter, but they lacked steel, ore, and skilled steel workers.   Destroying a few miles of rails - especially far from a city in remote areas - would cripple German transports for weeks, even months at a time.

Throughout this book, we're privvy to the 1943 leadership's complete lack of understanding which is odd because the Brits clearly understood Europe (and the German war machine) ran on rails.  Yet they too never made a massive effort to bomb the railroads - which IF it had been done in a concerted effort, out in the rural areas - would have not attracted immediate German anti-air responses.  Nor could it have.  The Luftwaffe simply couldn't possibly cover a hundred thousand miles of track, day in, day out.  They COULD cover a few marshalling yard cities - which led to bad Allied losses with negligible effect.

I'd consider this a must-read for the study of Failures Of Strategic Thinking, and yet the Hamburg raid was generally successful.  Just not in destruction of the shipyards, which had migrated many services and facilities, and those lessened abilities were back in service in a few months.

The major success was the destruction of Hitler's western German support.  He adamantly and directly refused to visit Hamburg, to display "compassion" as Goebbels begged.  No.  He would not be bothered with civilian traumas.  He refused to see them.  And this filtered back as Wermacht soldiers headed back to hometown Hamburg and couldn't believe Hitler had "done nothing".  This was the largest chink in his armor, because the million-plus Hamburg refugees spread this 'fable of Hitler's non-visit' far and wide.  He was never THAT popular in Western Germany, and this episode would be cited as the turning point in German Resistence movements (which were, cough cough, functionally nil).

[Dr.Cyclops]

Heart Full of Soul: Keith Relf of the Yardbirds