What book(s) are you reading currently?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

I didn't know that. But what's the obsession with Dunkirk?

I suppose every country has iconic moment in history when everything changed. I imagine the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917 is such a moment in Russian history; possibly the failure of the reactionary coup plot in 1991. Dunkirk was a hugely iconic moment in British history because it was a moment when our world changed forever. Until Dunkirk, we had been coasting along in our "Phoney War", with only the merchant navy and the little warships seriously in danger; and then we were confronted with the probability of an irretrievable defeat. Churchill described Dunkirk as a deliverance and truthfully it was, because we recovered seven eighths of the men of the BEF, even though most of the equipment was lost and even the rifles. Replacing equipment was very hard and it took three years to finish that job; but had we lost the men they could never have been replaced because we simply didn't have the reserve manpower to replace them. Without Dunkirk in 1940, D Day in 1944 would not have happened, nor even Tunisia, Sicily and Italy in 1943. To be brutally honest, I think we would have lost the war had we not saved the men of the BEF.

Culturally, the Dunkirk defeat, and a crushing defeat it was, was the kick in the arse Britain sorely needed. It was followed by the invasion scare, and strangely we were never so united before, never in our 1,000 years. My own grandmother had a special knife which the butcher sharpened for her; it was reserved for the first German soldier to enter her house. The slogan at the time was "You can always take one with you" and this was her plan; to take one with her. Many people felt like that, that they must live free or die and that death was better than to be enslaved. Later, the war became draining, exhausting and demoralising, but the country never wavered in its decision to see it through. Dunkirk was the moment when the war became real and the choices became few and stark. In June 1940, Britain made a great choice, the best decision Britain ever made; to refuse to make peace and to either win or die. Dunkirk was the catalyst. We ceased to be a Great Power in that war but we have never been a better country than we were in those days and I am so proud of my ancestors for how they measured up.

[Baresfan]

Spook Street - the latest in the Slough House series by Mick Herron about a group of disgraced and problematic MI-6 agents who always manage to save the day. Great stuff! https://www.amazon.com/Spook-Street-...s=Spook+Street

[tamsmith]

Ben Kane. Road to Rome. The last book in the trilogy.

[tamsmith]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

The Royal Navy used to have Midshipmen as young as eight..

From my family tree a relative on mine was taken into the Army/Military as 14 years old when he was only 11 years 8 months. Be about 160 years ago.

Thankfully he lived otherwise I would not be here.

[BlueArsedFly]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

The Royal Navy used to have Midshipmen as young as eight..

Not to mention Roger the Cabin Boy.

[rlg118]

Casey Stengel: Baseball's Greatest Character by Marty Appel

[BlueArsedFly]

Originally Posted by Pinkpapercut

I'm enjoying working my way through Jack Kirby's 'Fourth World' series of comics from the early 70s which I enjoyed as a young teenager but which I never got to read in their entirety at the time.



'Mister Miracle' is still my favourite strand of the series. I was never a huge fan of US superhero comics but the 'Fourth World' series and the early issues of 'Thor', also the work of Kirby, I absolutely loved.

Some years back I reread the Fourth World books in their original publication order. It was still hard to figure out what the hell was going on.

It was Kirby's last creative burst and perhaps the most creative of his long career but he desperately needed a Stan Lee (or even a Jim Shooter or Roy Thomas god help us) to provide structure. Kirby was creating interesting characters like Forager, Sonny Sumo and the Black Racer but barely knew how to fit them in.

And hardly any of the characters are interesting as personalities, maybe Darkseid and Izaya/Highfather and that's about it. Forever People was mostly flat out dull and the hipster dialog coming out of Big Bear was just laughable.

Kudos to Kirby for attempting non-linear narrative fifteen years before Watchmen but it was really beyond his skills as an actual writer.

It all just fizzled out in the end which was very sad.

There is greatness in there too. My first Fourth World book was Mr Miracle #5 with the legendary Big Barda bikini workout splash page. And his double page spread of the Female Furies barracks in MM #8 is a classic. Some of them lounging around, perhaps in their underwear cleaning their weapons while at the back Big Barda has just walked in to restore order to the chaos. And New Gods #7 - the 'origin' issue of the whole thing - is a fantastic story that should have been allowed to unfold over several issues instead of cramming it into one.

[rlg118]

How Hitler Could Have Won World War II by Bevin Alexander

[rosestone]

Originally Posted by rlg118

How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

Switched sides?

[MaxJoker]

Originally Posted by MaxJoker

Such a shame
To desperately avoid a third Punic war they agreed to hand over innumerable amounts of military equipment. Including countless javelins , arrows , armour and defensive siege engines. Plus 200.000 panoplies and 2,000 torsion engines etc etc ad nauseam. Once they`d done so though Rome then attacked the city. The cheeky fcukers.
Uh huh you and I would have seen it coming and told Rome to sod off
However the city elite didn't
Yet amazingly and despite their offensive capabilities stripped to the bone Carthage still held out for over two years and on one occasion even came close to breaking the back of the siege !.

Well excuse me for always choosing to support the underdog

Anyway am now several dozen pages into this equally detailed interesting beauty