Concur, Outlaw Platoon is an excellent book.
Concur, Outlaw Platoon is an excellent book.
Went on a (mild) Hunter S. Thompson binge this week- I find "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" a rather insightful look at what's wrong with our current presidential selection process... and definitely not boring. "The Great Shark Hunt" likewise.
Plus, it's a better view into the mindset of the Left than Annity O'Limbaugh's "Liberals are Stupid".
Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor (an interesting take on the whole Alice in Wonderland story)
The Odd Thomas Series by Dean Koontz
If you like the show Castle they have released the "books" from the show under the name of Richard Castle
Stehen King blows, but the Dark Tower series is really good.
Steve Martin actually writes some good books Shop Girl etc.
Neil Gaimon writes some great stuff as well. Neverwhere and American Gods are really great. He also wrote Star Dust and Coraline of which movies were made.
The Dresden Files get good marks, though I have only read a little of one book.
Something else I would recommend. Go to www.overdrive.com on that site put in your zip code and see if any local libraries participate with over drive. If you have some its a great way to check out books for free to read on your kindle. I am lucky enough to have two libraries close to me that participate and I can check out up to 7 books at one time between the two of them if I want. Its a great service and really helps you get the most out of your kindle with no cost. It's also a great way to take a chance on a book without spending any money.
You should also subscribe to the Kindle Daily deals. Every day Amazon has a few books for 1.99 or less and Every month they rotate selections into their 3.99 or less area. I have had the paper white for a bit now so I have been able to find lots of ways to churn through books without spending a ton of money doing it.
I have more, but for the life of me I cannot think of the books right now.
Edit: Just realized how old this thread was....got burned by the "whats new link"
I think you're fine. The information in the thread doesn't have an expiration date, and I'm looking into this overdrive.com thing as we speak.
Quick or Dead by William L. Cassidy, Paladin Press 1978.
Cassidy attempts to make a scholarly history of pistol shooting in the 20th century. While the pistol has existed for quite a while, he starts around the turn of the century with the development of systemtized pistol shooting which he recognizes as the development of metallic cartridge revolvers, quality control that allowed consistent accuracy. formation of the United States Revolver Association and the begining of formal pistol matches. He discusses the development of the 1911, the exhibition shooters, the match structure and law enforcement's use of the matches. He then breaks off to Shanghai and follows Fairbairn and Sykes and the development of point shooting and its spread during the war to the US and Rex Applegate's work to propogate it. He gives a decent run down of the famous handgun writers such as Charles Askins, Bill Jordan and the rise of Jeff Cooper. One thing that was a little irritating (and not the author's fault) is that it was published in 1978, within 5 years the Modern Technique of the Pistol would become dominant in most circles and he more or less dismisses Cooper and MTP. While Cooper had his shortcomings and we now see the MTP as pretty dated it was enormously influential in hindsight.
The author is not quite as scholarly as he could be, citing Time Life books and a few other sources that could be considered a bit dubious. However compared to the purely anecdotal method used by most firearms writers it is a dramatic improvement. He is also a fairly shameless point shooting/Fairbairn/Applegate fanboy who suffers from a mild case of "proven on the streetz" syndrome that dismisses any value from the development of action pistol competition or what would evolve into the modern civilian training community. I seem to recall a passage about people "playing" in the desert at the American Pistol Institute.
All in all a great book that develops a theory of how the instruction of pistol shooting developed in the 20th century. While I have some disagreements with him, that is the way scholarship happens. Someone comes up with the theory, others come in, critique the theory and expand or correct it into their own theories. If you can find it, its well worth your time.
James and the Duck
$3.03 for Kindle edition. Its a collection of short stories that reads much like a journal or diary.
"You can't win a war with choirboys. " Mad Mike Hoare
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes was an excellent fictional book about an officer's experience in the Vietnam war. I did a search on this thread and was a bit surprised it wasn't mentioned. Took me a while to get into this book, but once I did I really enjoyed it.
Skinny Dip, Double Wammy and Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen. The audio book of Skinny Dip was actually very well done.
Anything by William Gibson. His early work is not-so-distant-future cyberpunk sci-fi stuff and his later works (all fiction)explore the covert relationships between big business, the military and the government from the POV of several investigative type individuals. I believe his earlier works (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light) are a pretty good forecast of things to come.
Good news everybody! John D. MacDonald's "Travis McGee" series is available on Kindle.
And, if your not familiar with this classic bit of American lit, start with "Darker than Amber"
I'll second the recommendation of anything by William Gibson. He is my favorite sci-fi writer by far. I will also recommend anything by Philip K. Dick as well. I particularly liked Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book that Bladerunner was based on. I loved A Scanner Darkly as a book, but I hated the film.Originally Posted by secondstoryguy
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