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Flyboys, by James Bradley. Gives the indepth story of a few airmen shot down in the war for the pacific, while giving a good overview of the war with Japan. I think it should be manditory reading to graduate high school.
some out the big themes: Japan was brutal. The USA was not as brutal, but we are no saints. More men were killed by samurai swords in WWII than atom bombs.
I finally read "The Bonner Incident" books by Watson and Rider. Loved them.
Great read, and your right, it should be on a mandatory list for any school. War is hell but those Japanese were butchers!Quote:
Originally Posted by SSChameleon
Reading " The River of Doubt " by Candice Millard, the true story of Theodore Roosevelt's journey through the Amazon to chart an unexplored river in 1913-14. Amazing story, he was a pretty tough guy.
So appropos of the 'Girl with all the Gifts' thread, it occured to me that I have accumulated a whole pile of post/apocalyptic fiction on my bookshelf. Figured I'd provide a list and my very brief thoughts on them, in no particular order:
Oryx & Crake / Year of the Flood / Madd Adam - Margret Atwood. Apocalypse by man-engineered virus. The first book was freaking awesome. The second book sucked. The third one was average. You don't really need to read the later two to enjoy it.
The Post Mortal - Drew Magary - Apocalypse by discovering the key to biological immortality. This is a great book that thought through several downside scenarios to immortality that I hadn't thought of or seen before.
The Leftovers - Tom Perrotta - Apocalypse by rapture. I didn't really like this very much. I didn't care much for the follow-up series on HBO either, although I do think both Liv Tyler and Emily Meade are hot. So there's that going for the TV version.
Robopocalypse - Daniel H Wilson - Apocalypse by sentient robots. Felt like a Terminator rip-off. Would have enjoyed it more as a teenager, I suppose.
The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker - Apocalypse by increasing gravity. Oprah tricked me on this one. I thought she might have some good P/A taste after Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road', but I was wrong. Lot of teenage angst.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy - Apocalypse by unknown, but probably limited nuclear war. Brilliant, dark, and realistic.
Morte - Robert Repino - Apocalypse by sentient ants and other animals. This was ok until about 75% of the way through, when it mostly turned into a screed against religion. Picture putting Richard Dawkins, Animal Farm, and The Hunger Games in a blender.
The Hunger Games - Susan Collins - Apocalypse by economic collapse and rebellion. Read these at the request of my wife before she would give them to our daughter. Just go see the movies. Jennifer Lawrence is hot.
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel - Apocalypse by plague. Nicely written and from a young-ish girl's perspective.
The Pest House - Jim Crace- Apocalypse by plague. Another very well written book that explores life and society after the plague.
The Postman - David Brin - Apocalypse by nuclear disaster. This was a good book in 1990 that didn't age quite as well. Don't see the movie. It sucked.
Earth Abides - George R Stewart. Apocalypse by plague. This book was written in the 1940s and it has aged phenomenally well. One of the best. Takes you through 40-50 years after the plague.
Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank - Apocalypse by nuclear war. Well written book about survival in a small town.
Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven - Apocalypse by asteroid strike. Very much an 80s book. Not bad, not fantastic.
[b]One Second After [b] - William R. Forstchen - Apocalypse by EMF attack. I hated this book and felt like it was a plot-point per plot-point rip-off of Lucifer's Hammer. I am apparently the only gun owner who hates this book.
I am Legend - Richard Matheson - Apocalypse by Vampires. Way better than either movie.
The Passage / The Twelve / City of Mirrors - Justin Cronin - Apocalypse by Vampires. Only the first book is decent. Way, way overrated.
Nod - Adrian Barnes - Apocalypse by Lack of Sleep - Interesting concept, fairly executed. Solid 'B' graded short novel.
The Gone Away World - Nick Harkaway - Apocalypse by void of information - A long, trippy novel that I am still not sure if I like or not. Very fantastical.
The Wind Up Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi - Apocalypse by global warming and genetic engineering. Interesting in it's conception of the use of springs for storage of power.
The Water Knife - Paolo Bacigalupi - Southwestern regional apocalypse due to water rights. Ole' Paolo's becoming a one-note kind of author, but this is a well executed and interesting study of the complexities of water rights in this region.
The Dog Stars - Peter Heller - Apocalypse by plague. Local fiction set in Colorado. I like that he feeds his dog human organs.
Zone One - Colson Whitehead - Apocalypse by zombies. Walking Dead for aspiring Harvard students preparing for the vocabulary portion of the SAT. Pretentious and overrated.
A Canticle for Liebowitcz - Walter M Miller - Apocalypse by nuclear war as it repeats itself through cycles of civilization. "Fallout" long before Fallout existed. Decent.
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson - Apocalypse by aliens. Sort of a large scale version of Steven King's "Under the Dome". Decent.
Wool / Shift / Dust - Hugh Howley - Apocalypse by man-made virus. The first one was awesome. Other two are 'meh'.
The Plague - Albertus Camus - Localized apocalypse by plague. I'm throwing this one in because it is a short novel, and very accessible. A remarkable meditation on disease and quarantine that is easily read and based on the author's real life experience. Plus it will give you a one-up on that pretentious hottie in the Starbucks who is majoring in literature but hasn't actually read anything more than the cliff notes to a Jane Austen novel.
The Girl With All The Gifts - M.R. Carey - Apocalypse by Zombies - currently being discussed in GD. Has an amusing twist on when condescending flower-empowerment goes horribly awry.
Seven Eves - Neal Stephenson - Apocalypse by Aliens blowing up the moon. Interesting in that it shifts the survival of the human race into space. Written by a guy who knows a lot about space. Decent.
The Brief History of the Dead - Kevin Brockmeier - Apocalypse by virus. A trippy meditation on the afterlife combined with the gradual dwindling of the human race to one person struggling to survive in the Arctic.
There are probably some more on the bookshelf that I missed, but that makes a good start for JohnnyEgo's Post-Apocalyptic Reading List.
return to the era of what i called pulp / dime store fiction
This was free
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...IMAL+Series%29
Which morphed in to reading the entire series. I'm a glutton for punishment so once my interest was piqued. Why not, especially with kindle unlimited. Standard former .mil personal fare. Approx 200 pg. per book, makes for 1 maybe 2 nights of reading
https://www.amazon.com/PRIMAL-9-Book...ck+silverstone
While on the subject of Kindle Unlimited. After receiving a kindle from the daughter a few years back. I was, 1 book every 30 days ???? Or you have to pay per book [hahhah-no] when they have these things called libraries .
being laid up with limited travel that [LOL] has turned in to Mmm guess this isnt that bad.. Since KU has debuted, for me it's like an all you can eat buffet. 8 book series No problem. very convenient when one is traveling
Still visit the library 1-2 month and load up.
Agreed, libraries are great resources and they have all manner of books to read. I also look at garage sales if convenient and once a year at the Labor Day Rist Canyon VFF benefit I stock up on cheap books, I usually get at least 6 months worth of reading and then I donate them back or pass them on to other interested parties.
Just finished reading "Slow Train To Arcturus" - pretty good story about alien contact and generation ships.
Read the entire "Daniel Leary/RCN" series by Drake - bout 9 books so far.
Slowly working my way through the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Book 6 of the "The Expanse" is due out any day now, and I just read the short novel "The Churn" set in that universe.
Still working through The Survivalist series JohnTRourke sent me. It's perfect for poop breaks at work -- entertaining, lite reading.
Just finished The Final Day, (third book in the One Second After series). If anybody here wants it, shoot me a PM with a mailing address and I'll send it to you.