What book(s) are you reading currently?

[73north]

Lesbian Journal - The Dyke Goes West
by Glenda Phillips , American Art Enterprises , California , 1985
read it this weekend , not too bad a story !

* Brecht * - This Scan is for you

[Starkos]

Currently reading this harrowing tale of survival @ sea and it's highly engrossing.

[73north]

Safeguard of the Sea by NAM Rodger ( 1997 )
re-read it last few days - about the early History of British Navy ( 660-1649 )
and how we never had one really till Richard I and Henry V - and how regularly
the small Fleet was sold off , and then near disaster when War erupted
with France or Spain - and how Alfred the Great was not really the ' Father ' of the Royal Navy - that belongs to Henry VII and not Henry the Eight
- interesting parallels with today

[mongo630]

Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk. Since I will be visiting the Caribbean soon, I thought it would be good to read a classic.

[Sir Honkers]

The Rivers Of London graphic novels Night Witch and Cry Fox. A policeman's lot is not a happy one.

[jesegr]

The Outsider by Stephen King

[petecom]

"Hook" by Len Deighton (from the spy trilogy Hook, Line & Sinker).

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by charliels531

"Empire of the Columbia" by Dorothy O. Johansen

A rather modest volume, published in 1967, covering the history of the area which includes British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. An odd piece of land at various times occupied by the Salish People, the Spanish, Russians, French, Spanish again, French again, British, and Americans. I like to read old books occasionally to understand the way things looked to folks fifty years ago and what, if anything, we have learned since.

The Northwest has been my home for years, and this is a fine book. In terms of "what we've learned since"-- I'd say that biggest new information since that book is the paleo anthropology, just which people came through here when.

There's a fine book about a major find near me, a set of bones called Kennewick Man; his DNA changed a lot of our understanding of who came through when (surprising result-- he's most closely related to the native Americans who live here 9000 years later)

Just read it: Skull Wars, highly recommended.
https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/da...9780465092253/

[Starkos]

For the 1000th time.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by 73north

Safeguard of the Sea by NAM Rodger ( 1997 )
re-read it last few days - about the early History of British Navy ( 660-1649 )
and how we never had one really till Richard I and Henry V - and how regularly
the small Fleet was sold off , and then near disaster when War erupted
with France or Spain - and how Alfred the Great was not really the ' Father ' of the Royal Navy - that belongs to Henry VII and not Henry the Eight
- interesting parallels with today

From The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [AD 897]

This same year the plunderers in East-Anglia and Northumbria greatly harassed the land of the West-Saxons by piracies on the southern coast, but most of all by the esks which they built many years before. Then King Alfred gave orders for building long ships against the esks, which were full-nigh twice as long as the others. Some had sixty oars, some more; and they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher than the others. They were not shaped either after the Frisian or the Danish model, but so as he himself thought that they might be most serviceable. Then, at a certain turn of this same year, came six of their ships to the Isle of Wight; and going into Devonshire, they did much mischief both there and everywhere on the seacoast. Then commanded the king his men to go out against them with nine of the new ships, and prevent their escape by the mouth of the river to the outer sea. Then came they out against them with three ships, and three others were standing upwards above the mouth on dry land: for the men were gone off upon shore. Of the first three ships they took two at the mouth outwards, and slew the men; the third veered off, but all the men were slain except five; and they too were severely wounded. Then came onward those who manned the other ships, which were also very uneasily situated. Three were stationed on that side of the deep where the Danish ships were aground, whilst the others were all on the opposite side; so that none of them could join the rest; for the water had ebbed many furlongs from them. Then went the Danes from their three ships to those other three that were on their side, be-ebbed; and there they then fought. There were slain Lucomon, the king's reve, and Wulfheard, a Frieslander; Ebb, a Frieslander, and Ethelere, a Frieslander; and Ethelferth, the king's neat-herd; and of all the men, Frieslanders and English, sixty-two; of the Danes a hundred and twenty. The tide, however, reached the Danish ships ere the Christians could shove theirs out; whereupon they rowed them out; but they were so crippled, that they could not row them beyond the coast of Sussex: there two of them the sea drove ashore; and the crew were led to Winchester to the king, who ordered them to be hanged. The men who escaped in the single ship came to East-Anglia, severely wounded.

No question at all. King Alfred the Great was the original founder of the English Navy.