What book(s) are you reading currently?

[Baresfan]

Jeeves and The King of Clubs by Ben Schott

[rosestone]

Because of the nature of the subject matter the author is coquettish about his own story, although he also can’t restrain himself at times, which just gave me the impression that in his earlier life he was an insufferable coked up bro-executive at one of those ‘privatise the profits and socialise the losses’ corporations, and while his former staff now huddle under some tarpaulin and contemplate the poorhouse, he sits in his penthouse feeling bored and sorry for himself, and this book is the result. It’s feels like a kind of ‘mea culpa’, just without much culpa.

Incidentally, why can’t western executives be more like the guys in Japan ? Here when everything goes belly up, they just smirk, absolve themselves of responsibility, then vanish with their suitcases full of cash. In Japan, at least they have the decency to start blubbing at a press conference or drive their sports car into the ocean or something.

Anyway, I can save you the trouble of reading this book, and summarise every idea into one sentence : Just don’t be a dick.

The book is full of gnomic wisdom and cod philosophy, and the interesting quotes by interesting thinkers are just shoehorned in to whatever thesis/structure it was the author pitched to the publisher, so it comes off like a teenager’s diary (you’d be much better off just reading a book of quotations). The author also has the annoying habit (annoying to me, anyway) of lecturing about his own epiphany and spiritual one-ness about his ego-ectomy, while still writing about the CEO he worked with that he clearly imagines his readers have heard of and give two craps about (I hadn’t and I don’t). He implies throughout that business executives making investment decisions are an equivalence with great Generals, philosophers, or whatever. It’s annoying.

Not impressed.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by palo5

Looking at that book-cover, I'm wondering how many of our officers would allow jungle-camouflage in winter conditions. I hope it's not many

Those are the Marines, who ended up on the Choson Reservoir, very unexpectedly in the Winter of 1950. Marines didn't have winter kit at all, so far as I know, at that time.

Even Mother Rossiya has had her commeuppance in the snows; fighting against the Finns in 1940 I don't think they had white camouflage at that point either.

[karloschaos]

Just got into Kinky Friedman at the recommendation of a mate. Halfway through "The Mile High Club." So far, so good.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Even Mother Rossiya has had her commeuppance in the snows; fighting against the Finns in 1940 I don't think they had white camouflage at that point either.

I agree, but none of them wore jungle camouflage in the snow

[Brecht]

James Ellroy - American Tabloid (1995)



Ellroy does what he does best: mixing fact and fiction. This rather large book, that would have been even larger if it hadn't been written Ellroy's field-tested staccato style, covers five years of American history, starting in 1958 and ending just before John F. Kennedy kicks the bucket on 22. November 1963. Divided into five chapters, the plot is a web of events involving the Kennedy clan, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, the mafia, Jimmy Hoffa, call girls, extortions, Cuban exiles, the Bay of Pigs Invasion and in the middle of it all are three rogue cops.

Here's Ellroy's own introduction to the book:

"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight.
The real Trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He called a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab.
Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. It's time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall.
They were rogue cops and shakedown artist. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it.
It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time.
Here's to them."

[megawad]

Andy Weir "Artemis" and "The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc."

Both very enjoyable...I really liked "The Martian" by Andy Weir and have been very pleased with his second novel.
Twain's bio of the Deliverer of France is by his accounting his best and finest work.

MW

[Clouddancer]

i love Harry Bosch only one third through, but this book deals with Bosch´s daughter is kidnapped by Chinese Tong gangs in Hong Kong, so far so good.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by palo5

I agree, but none of them wore jungle camouflage in the snow

That was all the Marines had . . . when the North Koreans came across the 38th parallel in June of 1950, crashed through all the defensive lines, before troops brought in from (mostly) Japan were able to set up a perimeter around the southern port of Pusan.

Then, amazingly, they pushed the North Koreans all the way back well North of Pyongyang-- all of this happened in a very compressed period, including Macarthur's remarkable innovation, the amphibious invasion at Inchon "Operation Chromite"-- one of the cleverest bits of US operational art in a long time; that's part of why you get the Marines where they ended up. So they were in the cold snowy mountains of the Chosin Reservoir when the snows came.

The Marines have always made much of the fact that they get the Army's hand-me-down equipment (sometimes true, sometimes not).

So that's how Marines equipped for the jungles of the Pacific end up in the snows of North Korea. . .

Macarthur justifiably gets a lot of grief for his vanity and some bad calls, but his defense of South Korea and Inchon in particular was probably the most clever bit of generalship by an American, maybe ever.

There's a good book called "The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950: The Battles That Saved South Korea--and the Marines--from Extinction" that's pretty good-- its more seen through the eyes of individual Marines than the big picture.

There's one quote from a Marine about their equiptment

Originally Posted by SSG Gaines

" We had no cold weather gear except for the shoepacs, of course wool socks and parkas. We wore the dungarees, fatigues, utilities or whatever you would call them, but no cold weather gear." "At one point, we were also given a fur lined cap with ear flaps, and sometime along the way we finally got long underwear." The shoepacs had liners in them and they were great when we were marching, but when we stopped our feet would freeze, you know, from sweating and all."

Here's a pic from the Marine Corps museum at Quantico of 1950 Marine equipped, not the jungle camo helmet

[palo5]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

That was all the Marines had . . .

I know soldiers only get what they're given, and what they can scavenge. But I meant the guy with the removable jungle helmet camouflage. As a former infantry officer, I would have had a WTF-moment