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Thread: What have you read lately?

  1. #331
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    I have been reading some historical fiction by Douglas Jackson- Hero of Rome, and also Ben Kane- Clash of Empires. They really capture the feel of combat from both the Greek Phalanx and Roman Legion perspective.
    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


  2. #332
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    southwest88's Avatar Senior Member
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    Operation Shakespeare : the true story of an elite international sting / John Shiffman, c2014, Simon & Schuster, 338.973 SHIF 2014.

    Subjects
    • United States. -- Department of Homeland Security.
    • Operation Shakespeare, 2004-2009.
    • Technology transfer -- Government policy -- United States.
    • Undercover operations -- United States.
    • War on Terrorism, 2001-2009.
    • Terrorism -- United States -- Prevention.
    • National security -- United States.
    • Intelligence service -- United States.


    Summary
    • "A Pulitzer Prize finalist presents the rare and intimate narrative of a daring national security sting designed to protect US soldiers, sailors, and pilots from
      the greatest danger they face on the battlefield--an enemy equipped with American-made weapons and technology. In Operation Shakespeare, investigative journalist John Shiffman traces an audacious and high-risk undercover operation--from Philadelphia to Shiraz to London to Beverly Hills to
      Tbilisi and Dubai. The sting is launched by an elite undercover Homeland Security unit created to stop the Iranians, Russians, Chinese, Pakistanis,
      and North Koreans from acquiring sophisticated American-made electronics capable of guiding missiles, jamming radar, and triggering countless
      weapons--from wireless IEDs to nuclear bombs. The US agents must outwit not only enemy brokers, but American manufacturers and global bankers too willing to put profit over national security. The three-year sting in Operation Shakespeare climaxes when the US agents lure the Iranian broker
      to a former Soviet republic with the promise of American-made radar, fighter-jet and missile components, then secretly drag him back to the
      United States, where he is held in secret for two years. The laptop the Iranian carries into the sting provides the CIA with a treasure trove, a
      virtual roadmap to Tehran's clandestine effort to obtain US military technology. Tenacious, richly detailed, broad in scope, and emotionally
      powerful--and boasting unprecedented access to the government agents fighting this shadow war, as well as the captured Iranian arms
      broker--Operation Shakespeare is a fast-paced and masterful account of the covert effort to preserve American military supremacy, and to protect US troops"-- Provided by publisher.


    Length


    • xii, 267 pages : sources, maps, no index

    A fascinating story, rolling up a single network in the Iranian weapons & parts & materials acquisition system. They target US technology, partly because a lot of old
    (pre-Revolutionary) Iranian tech was from the US, but also because they want cutting-edge technology from the West. A must-read for anyone interested in Iranian military planning.






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  4. #333
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    I am currently reading "The Boy, Me, And The Cat" by Henry Plummer. Written in 1913 it is the story of Plummer, his son Henry Jr. and their cat Scotty's sail from Boston to Miami in a 24 foot sailboat. One of the interesting features of the book is that the author is obviously James Patterson's mentor. The book is only 128 pages long but has 39 chapters, some as short as half a page. The book was written from Mr. Plummer's sailing diary and as such lacks much in the way of form. It is not unlike my sailing diary other than the fact it is far more interesting and even I can't read much of what I wrote over the years!!!

    Another aspect of the book is just how un PC the book is. Mr Plummer carries a 22 caliber rifle fitted with a "Maxim silencer" to allow him to shoot whatever he wants to shoot during the voyage. He has named the weapon The Helen Keller because it cannot be seen or heard by his prey. He shoots several animals just to see if it can be done and while his views on race relations mirror those of the day he certainly wouldn't win any prizes today. There are many in this forum that would ban the book based on this but in so doing they would miss a good yarn and very lyrical prose throughout.

    As a follow up, Mr. Plummer's son Henry Jr. was killed during the 1st World War.

  5. #334
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    Cotton1's Avatar Senior Member
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    Steve Jobs, Charlie Chaplin bio, Mark Donahue bio, History of Flight, Dennis Conner America Cup, Ecclesiastes, the Tipping Point...a must read( how little things can make a big difference)
    Last edited by Cotton1; 01-14-2019 at 01:49 AM.
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    I just finished book 5 in Game of Thrones, Dance with Dragons. After all that, George RR Martin can be incredibly boring. He has crowds of characters. Every where they have been and especially every thing they eat is examined in minute detail. Consequently the plot is sluggish. I tend to skip over a lot.

    I have started book 2 of Longmire. Otherwise I tend to go with cat mysteries. As I have gotten older my vision isn't as good as it was. I use an e-reader so I can adjust the font. I love it. All my life, in my many moves I have lost my books. I just could not haul a ton of books around. Now I have about 100 and they all fit in my pocket!

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  8. #336
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    I just started Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory and Death in the World of Tradition.

    Julius Evola
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


    ~Alain de Benoist


  9. #337
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    Im rereading "Steve Jobs"
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  10. #338
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    countryboy's Avatar Senior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by EvilCat Breath View Post
    I just finished book 5 in Game of Thrones, Dance with Dragons. After all that, George RR Martin can be incredibly boring. He has crowds of characters. Every where they have been and especially every thing they eat is examined in minute detail. Consequently the plot is sluggish. I tend to skip over a lot.

    I have started book 2 of Longmire. Otherwise I tend to go with cat mysteries. As I have gotten older my vision isn't as good as it was. I use an e-reader so I can adjust the font. I love it. All my life, in my many moves I have lost my books. I just could not haul a ton of books around. Now I have about 100 and they all fit in my pocket!
    You mean, Song of Ice and Fire. Game of Thrones is the first book in that series. GET IT STRAIGHT MAN!!!!

    Lol, just messin' with ya, it's a good series. George R.R. Martin has a superbly demented imagination.
    Cutesy Time is OVER

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    Stephen King just keeps sucking me back in.

    I remember my first encounter with his writing was while on deployment in '79 - guys were passing a copy of 'The Stand' around and I took my turn at it and was duly impressed. When I got home I read the earlier books, beginning with 'Carrie', and then the new ones as they were released. In '86, I spent every waking moment of a three-day weekend reading the massive 'It'. It wasn't until '92 and 'Gerald's Game' that I decided that King had lost his edge and was getting boring; I didn't read another King novel until 2006 ('Cell') and that one wasn't good enough to get me back on the bandwagon.

    In 2009, King published 'Under the Dome' - the best sci-fi novel I'd read since 'The Stand'. His follow-up to that was the JFK assassination/time travel story '11/22/63', which I still plan to read when I get around to it. Last week I picked up a copy of a book he published last year, 'The Outsider'. It begins with a beloved, small town children's sports coach being arrested for the rape and murder of a young boy. Fingerprint, DNA and eyewitness evidence make it an ironclad, open-and-shut case...except that the coach has an equally ironclad alibi: at the time of the murder he was 75 miles away at an author's talk and book signing, during which time he was filmed, seen by others and left fingerprints. Not just your standard murder mystery, this big book - almost 600 pages - includes, of course, King's standard near-voyeuristic poking into the lives of the characters and their families, with enough subtle clues and intertwined plot lines to make you crazy even while you can't put the damned thing down to go to sleep.
    Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

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  12. #340
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    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    Just about finished Regine Pernound's 1950 The Glory of the Medieval World. A delightful perusal of life back then, a lot of corrections of modern misconceptions.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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