Book Recommendations

[Medusa]

Always the best part of these threads....new ideas and authors to try!

I first read millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior in high school at the suggestion of my guidance counselor. I re-read it last summer along with several of the other books in the series and The Journeys of Socrates too. Way has aged somewhat gracefully and I was surprised how much had stayed with me all these years (I also reread Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I’d also read in high school, and again was surprised how much I’d internalized). For me Way is the quintessential Millman book. I enjoyed Journeys but found it a bit too contrived and pat with too much reliance on the supernatural. Still, a worthy read, and some people will find these aspects to be strengths.

Downloaded American Praetorians, looking forward to reading the series.

Thoroughly enjoying the posts between RB, JAD & JDD, opened me up to some authors I'd never even heard of, much less considered. In that vein, allow me to recommend The Journeys of Socrates by Dan Millman.

I've not read Millman's other works, but I always mean to get to them. At the time of my reading, I had no concept of his guru status nor his movie Peaceful Warrior, it was just a book recommended to me by another martial arts practitioner I knew. The book begins in Tsarist Russia at a military academy, the cold water training as part of life caught me early on and I knew I was reading about Systema, even though no style is ever named. Millman would later confirm that he was indeed describing his version of Systema, though he did not elaborate in that interview. Anyway, I liked it a great deal and if you read the weird side of fiction, you'll like it, too.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The Pentagon's Mind by Jacobsen

The history of DARPA. Fueled by brilliant minds, it is also quite scary if you read their crackpot ideas about the use of nuclear weapons with abandon by some. Luckily others toned it down.

They were also incredibly wrong about strategies in Viet Nam. They had good behavioral experts that saw the problems that the South had combating the Viet Cong and NVA. However, they were ignored by the folks who thought tech could win the war. Also, there was internal corruption in some of their scientists (money). When the behavioral types pointed out the problems, the generals refused to accept it and DARPA (and associated think tanks) send experts in nuclear weapons with instructions to come back with positive reports, no matter what. Crackpot schemes to destroy food and forest, strategic hamlets became the savior flavor of the month.

It reminds me of later governmental actions that refused to take good advice. Such as what would happen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Waco. We have a tendency to think that force always works - it depends as we have seen.

[Kukuforguns]

I should throw in a word in favor of Octavia Butler. The Xenogenesis books are highly original, rich, and sensual in an alien way.

Big +1 on recommendation for Octavia Butler.

[Stephanie B]

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club. When the Germans walked into Denmark, a small number of boys were dismayed at the acquiescence of their countrymen and were shamed by the resistance of the Norwegians. So they did something about it- from small things like repositioning directional signs, cutting field telephone wires to committing arson and stealing weapons.

They were eventually caught, but their example led to the formation of the Danish Resistance.

One of my gripes about YA books has been the "sixteen year olds leads armies to victory" stuff. Mostly, I roll my eyes, as history has shown that the roll of teenagers in wartime can be summed up in two words: Cannon fodder. But here, the kids absolutely did light the path that the adults later trod.

[gtae07]

I should throw in a word in favor of Octavia Butler. The Xenogenesis books are highly original, rich, and sensual in an alien way.

It’s been a long time since I read it but it was an interesting series; I don’t remember much of it or the Patternmaster (?) series. Butler is one of my wife’s favorite authors though. Interestingly, she’s at book club tonight and they just read Kindred. Shame she passed away so young...


Other good science fiction: Niven & Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye

The Deathworlders (ok, more space opera than SF... but I can’t put it down)

Non-SF:

I went back and read The Killer Angels again recently. Enjoyed it even more.



I tried reading McMaster’s Deriliction of Duty but it had me so infuriated I didn’t get very far. I wasn’t alive for any of the events in the book but the monumental stupidity and arrogance....

[Coyotesfan97]

Spearhead by Adam Makos

https://www.amazon.com/Spearhead-Ame...2202905&sr=8-1

At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.

After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art “super tank,” one of twenty in the European theater.

But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That’s how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the “Fortress City” of Germany.

——————

This was an awesome read. If you like WWII military history and armor you’ll like this book. I read three quarters of it in one sitting.



The fight between the Pershing and the Panther in Cologne was filmed. It’s in the video.

[Lester Polfus]

My latest, Rose City Kill Zone, is available now.

[Medusa]

Rad. I’ll grab it on audible. I’m the daughter of a Sherman tank platoon sergeant who fought in Korea, but my dad had a pretty awesome story about his unit “redeploying” some Pershings off railroad cars to replace losses in 1950.

Spearhead by Adam Makos

https://www.amazon.com/Spearhead-Ame...2202905&sr=8-1

At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.

After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art “super tank,” one of twenty in the European theater.

But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That’s how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the “Fortress City” of Germany.

——————

This was an awesome read. If you like WWII military history and armor you’ll like this book. I read three quarters of it in one sitting.



The fight between the Pershing and the Panther in Cologne was filmed. It’s in the video.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake Hardcover – October 2, 2018
by Steven Novella

Takes you through the psychology of bad decision making, crap nutso science, conspiracy theories, statistical misuse, cognitive errors and the like. Pretty interesting.

About the DARPA book I recommended earlier, a really chilling analysis of government surveillance technology. While this can feed into 2nd Amend. banning conspiracy theories (of course, they are real), the tech clearly indicates that all the folks who think they will bury their guns and mags so THEY WON'T COMPLY AND RESIST bans are fooling themselves if they think they are not already known as gun owners of a certain ilk. Good luck on the cliche of having a fishing boat accident with your AR.

[Lester Polfus]

About the DARPA book I recommended earlier, a really chilling analysis of government surveillance technology. While this can feed into 2nd Amend. banning conspiracy theories (of course, they are real), the tech clearly indicates that all the folks who think they will bury their guns and mags so THEY WON'T COMPLY AND RESIST bans are fooling themselves if they think they are not already known as gun owners of a certain ilk. Good luck on the cliche of having a fishing boat accident with your AR.

Right? This kind of ties into the panopticon discussion in another thread. I don't hang out on other gun fora much, but when I have, I've seen some real eye-rollers, like the guy who bought some 80% Glock frames from an internet retailer and had them shipped to his home so he would have some guns that were "off the books."

The only way you could plausibly fly under the radar would be:

1) Never have a CHL
2) Never buy a gun from an FFL
3) Never take a hunters safety course or buy a hunting license.
4) Never buy anything remotely firearms related, or for that matter buy anything at all from a store like Cabelas or Sportsman's Warehouse, with a credit or debit card.
5) Never visit a firearms related website.

There's probably more I haven't thought of. The beauty of the modern surveillance state isn't that it's been imposed on it, but that we willingly participate.