READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY?

[Stanley]

Deep in Beevor.... Grossman's three books arrive today....

[Tripps]

I've solved the KIndle download difficulty. Logged into Amazon over the wifi, typed 'free books' in the search window, and got a choice of thousands of pages of titles. I found it best to make a note of those I wanted, then search for them later individually, since after each download they take you back to the start

[Stanley]

Three Grossman books arrived yesterday. I think I have enough reading material for a while!

[Stanley]

Spent all day yesterday reading Beevor. One thing is certain, anyone who hero worshipped our leaders and certain generals, particularly Montgomery and the American Mark Clark will get a bit of a shock! Beevor has taken a long cold look at all of them and included the cock-ups. I must go back and re-read the report made by J K Galbraith and others on the efficacy of bombing during the war. The actual results in hindsight are ludicrous. Another thing that strikes me again and again is the dominance of the Krupps 88mm flak/anti-tank gun throughout the whole of the war. They were streets ahead of all the allies and were able to knock out any tank at long range. Absolutely crucial in so many battles. Funny thing is we started the war with a perfectly good equivalent, the 3.7" AA gun. (94mm). The reason why AA guns were so good as anti-tank guns when using armour piercing ammunition was because in order to fire a shell high enough to be effective against aircraft they had to be very high velocity. The Germans soon realised that the 88mm flak gun was ideal for anti tank and made their tanks big enough to carry the gun as well as producing an anti-tank version. Why didn't we do the same? It's a mystery and I shall have to dig into it further. One thing is certain. it would have been a game-changer and the technology was there all the time. I once met a German officer who reckoned that if the 17pdr had an equivalent piece to the 88mm it would have been far better.

[Stanley]

I've just finished reading Anthony Beevor's 2012 @The Second World War'. You'd think that after the amount of reading I've done on this subject the edge would have come off any further description but I'm happy to say that once more, Anthony Beevor has surprised and delighted me. This book is a tour de force and if anyone is looking for a good introduction to the subject they should read this first. Most of the story was known to me of course but he illustrates it with excerpts from soldier's letters and little vignettes of life as it was then. There were some entirely new facts to me, I didn't realise that the Japanese had used cannibalism as a tool of military strategy and I hadn't appreciated the depths of the divisions between the allies as fully as I do now. Many idols are shown to have feet of clay.... So, I think you can say that I am well-satisgfied with the investment of £12.50 for a new hardback!
As a consequence of Beevor's research I am now going to plunge into Vasily Grossman. 'Writer at War' first then his two no0vels, 'Life and Fate' and 'Everything Flows'. They tell me the last two are the equivalent of War and Peace! We'll see....
PS Comrade... No competition, I have more reading time than you. I hope you are enjoying it as much as I have done.

[Whyperion]

BBC4 on TV have been running episodes of David Reynold's History on WW2, watch again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ndj09 I think for 1942. Possibly draws on your source. Alan Wicker's television autobiography covering his time as official War Photographer gives his views on North Africa and Italy , essential reading for both campaigns also being Spike Milligan's autobiographical trilogy.

[Stanley]

Started on Grossman. He looks good!

[Stanley]

Getting on well with Grossman. I've finished 'Writer at War' and 'Everything Flows', I'm now on the biggie, 'Life and Fate'. I can see why Anthony Beevor leapt on Grossman when he found his notebooks. He gives an eye-witness account of what was happing in Russia and on the Eastern Front and it's a tragic story of incredible heroism, ineptitude in the leaders and unimaginable slaughter and hardship. Definitely not cheerful reading! However, it does give a better insight into what Russia contributed to WW2 and how the Allies, whilst ostensibly working together, were also riddled with faults and decisions based on national agendas rather than the war aims. Not comfortable reading for anyone who has any vestige of hero worship for our leaders and generals. Very few emerge unscathed.

[Nolic]

Got some shopping done and my admin work sorted so I'll have a couple of hours with our old friend Beevor this afternoon. After reading his account of the Crete and some of the characters involved in 2nd World War I'll be looking at his detailed book on Crete next. Nolic

[Stanley]

That's a gap on my shelf as well Comrade and I shall follow you. 'Life and Fate' isn't too difficult so far..... 800 pages to go.

[Stanley]

Half way through Life and Fate. Some good quotes. 'Love is like coal, hot when it's burning but dirty when it's cold'.

[Stanley]

Some very powerful passages, yesterday he described the gas chambers from the victims point of view. Terrible but fascinating and Grossman knew what he was talking about, he saw the camps at first hand and interviewed some of the few survivors.

[Stanley]

Finished 'Life and Fate'. A hard read. Not really a novel, more a total immersion experience in Russia and the Eastern Front from 1937 to 1945. Well worth attempting it if you want to expand your knowledge of how the society worked and what the consequences were for ordinary people. Many surprising beams of light into those years. One of the strangest was Stalin's habit of ringing ordinary people up on a whim. A call from Stalin was noted in the higher echelons and could change lives.
Having a rest now! Am reading the third volume of Schama's history of Great Britain 1776-2000. Light relief after Life and Fate!

[Stanley]

Comrade, I ordered Beevor on Crete.... Must stop buying books!

[Nolic]

And his one on the Spanish Civil War? Nolic

[Stanley]

Been there, done that Comrade, it's on the shelf and read. I started something completely different yesterday, 'My Place' by Sally Morgan. I first heard it a long while ago when it was serialised after Woman's Hour. It's the story of a woman who found she had aboriginal ancestry and traced it back. Well written and heart-wrenching stuff. We have so much to answer for. I remember seventy years ago when they told us about the Empire and things like explorers landing on a beach, planting a flag and claiming a whole continent for the Crown. I thought it was a bit too easy!

[Stanley]

Crete will be delivered today. 'My Place' is going well, such a brave book!

[Stanley]

I read the section where Sally Morgan describes going back to Corruna Downs, the station where her tribe came from and I had to get the tissues out. Tears running down my face as I read of the welcome they got there and what they found out about their place in the tribe. Not sure why at affects me so much. My dad says that Old Alec, my granddad always said there was Blackfellah blood in the family but no direct evidence. All I know is that if I'm left out in the sun I go black and Aborigine music sends shivers up my spine. I wonder if there are some stray genes in there somewhere?



See what I mean?

[Stanley]

Finished 'My Place', a lovely book which sheds a lot of light on the way the Aborigines were treated until relatively recently. Well worth reading. I was wrong yesterday when I said Beevor on Crete and Sue's writing group's book had arrived. The postie had done what I asked and put them in the recycling bin. Read Sue's book, a good read and worth supporting. Next for shaving is Beevor on Crete. I ordered 'Brothers at War' this morning......

[Stanley]

Finished Crete and what a story of lost opportunity! What struck me was the refusal of the commanding officer to allow the 6" guns of the coastal battery to be trained on the Germans as they took over Maleme aerodrome. Thanks for reminding me about it Comrade, another piece of the jigsaw.
I've ordered a hardback copy of Dorothy Hartley's book, 'Food in England'. I have her 1939 book 'Made in England' and have got that out to read next. I daren't tell you what it's cost.....

[Nolic]

I'm still ploughing my way around the North African desert with the hot headed Rommel. If any one of the thousands of risks he took had failed he would never have been heard of again. I suppose his greatness is that he knew which decision to make. Nolic

[Stanley]

He was certainly a competent general. Perhaps that was all it took, he was better than the opposition!
I've finished Dorothy Hartley 'Made in England' and it's still a good book even though it is seventy years since it was published. I'm expecting 'Brothers at War' and Hartley's 'English Food' today but am filling in re-reading H V Morton's 'In Search of England'. It's a book that is over-laid by strange attitudes. He set off round England by car in about 1927 and it's a mixture of incredibly nostalgic descriptions larded by his obvious dislike of the urban working class. He complains bitterly about charas depositing brass bands on village greens..... Nevertheless it's worth reading for what it tells us about society and the obvious follow on is 'English Journey' by J B Priestley.

[Tripps]

Ah - our literary paths cross again. I have just been the the book case and find that I have' In Search of England' in both hard and soft back. Also to my surprise, I find I have 'The Nights of London', and ' In search of Wales' . I spent the first few years of ownership thinking he was the Beachcomber guy, but eventually realised that was J B Morton. I found a book mark which was a telex message from work dated 1992.

I'm not sure he disliked the working class. Perhaps he was just out of his depth when meeting them. I've noticed something similar when my own kids, raised in the South, come into contact with 'full on' Lancashire uncle.

Here's an extract from 'England'. I note he was very fond of the semi colon - rarely seen these days.

I looked at the map. I was passing between Liverpool on the left and Manchester on the right, and about sixteen miles from both cities. Far off to the left I could see the Mersey estuary, with red smoke- stacks rising above the flat lands by the sandy shore. To the right there was an ominous grey haze in the sky which meant Manchester. Here was new England: an England of crowded towns, of great mill walls, of canals of slow black water; an England of coal and chemicals; of cotton, glass and iron.

Mill towns look grandly impressive from a hill, but when you dive into their streets the stark ugliness of the long barracky, prison like houses, run up so quickly to serve the servants of the machines, gives you an ache. The only consolation is that these monster towns and and cities of the North of England are a mere speck in the amazing greenness of England; their inhabitants can be lost in green fields and woodland within a few minutes. London is much more distant from a real wood than Warrington.

On Sundays in all the grey villages of Lancashire, the miners sit on their haunches against the walls, their hands between their knees, They are the only Englishmen who squat like Arabs. In the centre of every group is a white whippet on a lead.

I saw with great interest a sign marked 'Wigan'. Who could resist a visit to Wigan?

[Stanley]

David, the quibble about cornets on the village green surfaces in the introduction but otherwise he's fairly sound on the working class apart from viewing them with the eye of an anthropologist as an ancient species that deserved preservation. He is surprisingly complimentary about Wigan. Finished him yesterday but my 'Food in England' by Dorothy Hartley has arrived. It was described as ex-library and well used but is a very clean hardback.
I have a question for Tiz. It has been rebound with the cover incorporated in the back and the whole laminated in plastic. This seems to have been done before binding and the result is a very strong book with no shake in the spine. Did the publishers make specially bound copies for the libraries or was this done by the libraries? Either way it's a very clean, full size 19th edition with all the illustrations of the original. I think I'm going to enjoy this one!

[Stanley]

'Food in England' is superb. Why have I missed this book before? It's not just about food, it's a social history and the pen drawings Dorothy did for illustrations are wonderful, they remind me of Bewick's illustrations for his late 18thC book on birds. Really enjoying it, highly recommended.