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Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 3:59 pm
by J.D.
Well, "Savage Continent" turned out to be a gem of a book.

Lowe expands his scope to cover a whole spectrum of post-war issues, mostly in Eastern Europe. His description of the sham democratic precess applied to Romania was very enlightening and while it doesn't challenge the basic facts, it certainly challenges the accepted version of events.

Anyone who wants to understand what happened in the post-war period and why Europe - and the world - descended into the Cold War will do well to read it. Others I have since added to the list are "After Hitler" by Michael Jones, "The End" by Ian Kershaw, "Six Months in 1945" by Michael Dobbs and "A Woman in Berlin" by Anonymous.

All of these are excellent books and none was a dud (though I'm still making my way through Dobbs).

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 7:55 pm
by c.j
Reading David Kilcullen - Blood Year

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/boo ... n3lp2.html

Good read :yes:

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 9:14 pm
by richo
Read four Tom Clancy books while on hols and apart from Red October can't say I'm a fan , read a few of the Ghosts and Rainbow 6 novels and they sort of went nowhere .

But as I like Clive Cussler books I probably have no right to sledge other's works. Very OT I saw Steve McQueens doco on the making of Le Mans and Paul Newman's doco on his race career on the plane to LA and thought they were brilliant.

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 9:25 pm
by Exar Kun
Red Storm Rising was Clancy's best. Amazing book. Read it when I was 13 years old - took me three months to get through but loved it.

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Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 9:34 pm
by Jamo
Yep Red Storm is amazing. Without Remorse however is my favourite. John Kelly/Clark is such great character and a stone cold bad motherfucker.

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 4:59 pm
by Durrie
Red Storm Rising would be an ace movie.

The Jack Ryan books need to be read in order otherwise the development of his story is screwed up.

Mr Clark is a beast, but the books about him are a bit of a departure from the main Ryan line. Rainbow six is about Ryan's son isn't it?

Clancy's name is used on the covers of a bunch of later stuff that is actually written by others.

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 5:12 pm
by Cursed
I'm still reading David Copperfield and I don't know why I'm torturing myself in order to get a deeper meaning of terms like "Dickensian". I like the historic aspect but persisting with the whining protagonist is hard work.

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 6:33 pm
by Jamo
Durrie, no Jr comes from memory in Teeth of the Tiger which is fairly rubbish.

From memory it should be read

Without Remorse (Ryan's father appears, Jack is a lad)
Patriot Games
Red Rabbit
Red October
Cardinal
Clear and Present Danger
Sum of all Fears
Debt of Honour
Executive Orders
Rainbow 6 (not a Ryan book but falls here in the timeline)
The Bear and the Dragon (which I consider the end)

Re: Books and other reading material.

Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:59 pm
by c.j
I read these whilst bounding around Australia pre army. My dad had the lot and we stuck them in the map shelf of the old GQ Patrol. Took me the full 18 months of travelling to get through them but definitely was a bit of an underlying motivator to enter the military. Rainbow Six came out whilst we were in transit, I still have the first edition including sand from Cable Beach, that was the book that bit me the hardest. Clark and Chavez both pretty gritty characters, but poorly represented in the movies. Chavez would have been a lot fitter than his character appeared and Clark would have carried himself with more presence given his background than Dafoe was able to portray. I am also surprised by the lack of interest to put these series of books on to the big screen. Sure, some of the books are little slow going but with the right producer and a good script writer most of them could be pretty close to the mark. Surely better entertainment than Madam Secretary?

Also, they got me interested in studying Russian, but the ADF didn't offer it as a language so I was introduced to Tetum instead. Which worked out much better going in to East Timor :)